


Philia, Storge, Pragma

by Jonkers



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mates, Multi, Relationship(s), Slow Build, Slow Burn, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 45,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26030626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jonkers/pseuds/Jonkers
Summary: Charlotte Swan's therapist had always told her she was unnecessarily possessive. Possessive over her friends, her rainy town of Forks, and most of all, possessive over her adopted father. And Charlotte won't give them up for anything. Not for her sister suddenly coming to stay with them, not for a family of vampires making her life hell, not even for the strings of fate itself. There's more than one kind of love, after all, and for Charlotte, it doesn't take much to satisfy.Crossposted on FF.net. Currently on Indefinite Hiatus.
Relationships: Aro (Twilight)/Caius (Twilight)/Marcus (Twilight)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 112





	1. Prologue

It was an unfortunate series of events that led me to be with who I truly consider the best man in the world. If anything had gone even slightly differently I could be living an entirely different life. If my bio-dad had decided to stay with my bio-mo after knocking her up in high school, I might never have been put up for adoption. If my bio-mom had decided to get a day-job and her shit together instead of sliding needles in her arms and blowing our grocery money on bad weed, the neighbours might have never found her passed out halfway through the door of our shitty apartment while I played with pill bottles like they were Tonka Trucks. If my bio-mom hadn’t decided to name me Molly after her biggest fix, a decision which was in equal parts horrifying and amusing, the nice lady at child services wouldn’t have renamed me Charlotte after she read me Charlotte’s Web and it was the only thing that could get me to stop crying. And if I hadn’t been named Charlotte, Renée would have never picked me out of all the other children because “Oh look, Charlie and Charlotte, how adorable!” 

Renée was an entirely different character. I couldn’t say I hated her for what she did. I don’t think I could even say she was a bad person. Immature, sure. Flighty, definitely. But hardly evil. She loved experimenting and trying new things, crazy recipes that were barely edible. She loved playing around with paint colors, painting our cabinets bright yellow and our walls pale blue. It was when she started playing with people’s lives when it became a problem. I was an unfortunate, or rather fortunate, casualty of this little quirk of hers. Her marriage with Charlie was hanging by a thread when she decided to adopt me, as if I was some magical bandaid that would fix years worth of relationship problems. They already had a little girl, which had probably kept them together longer than it should have, so I don’t know why they thought I would be different. And I know she didn’t really consider me her daughter either. I was more some sort of funny little pet to her, which was why she was so disappointed when I decided to attach myself to the only one who didn’t want me.

I couldn’t really help how I acted those first few months with the Swan family. One unfortunate result of my past was my inability to emotionally connect with women. I was petrified of Renée, and even found it hard to talk to the quiet, demure little Isabella. The one thing my sister had going for her was her mild manners. My bio-mom had a habit of prattling on to me like I was some therapy doll, and it left me terribly anxious of anyone who enjoyed hearing themselves speak. My bio-mom was a complainer. She complained about how my bio-dad was her highschool’s best football player, and how he couldn’t have helped take care of me because he would have missed out on an Ivy League scholarship. She complained about how her Catholic parents forbid her from getting an abortion, but abandoned her anyway as soon as I was born. She even complained about how her dealer was cutting her coke too far, and how her Molly tasted flat on her tongue.   
I had little love for Renée, but she was certainly nothing like my bio-mom. When she nattered on it was mostly about wallpaper and house plants instead of her latest fix, but the similarities were just too much for me to handle. And so I ended up clinging to Charlie instead. Which in hindsight, was probably the best decision I ever made.

Charlie Swan was the first man I ever really interacted with. If my bio-mom had spent her free time screwing guys instead of screwing her life over with cheap drugs, I would have probably been far more terrified of him than Renée. But as it was, he fascinated me. I liked his big, brown puppy-dog eyes. I liked his funny mustache and the wrinkles on his forehead. I loved the way he rarely spoke, and how when he did, it was sweet and slow like honey. I took to using him as my own personal jungle-gym as a way to express my appreciation. I would cling to his legs when he walked and climb on his lap when he sat down. It would have been hard to say who was more disconcerted, him or Renée. He tolerated me, because he was sweet like that, but it was overwhelmingly clear even as a child what he thought about the whole situation. He had never wanted to adopt me. Charlie only had eyes for his real daughter. I was more like the daughter of a close friend he had to take care of for a favor.   
If any outsiders came to visit during those few months we all lived together in one house, it would have become very clear very quickly who the odd one out was. I didn’t even look like my new family. Renée, Charlie, and Isabella both had pale skin, dark wavy hair, and beautiful brown eyes framed with thick lashes. My mother had given me her tan skin, almond-colored eyes, and tight curls, and I had received dirty-blonde hair and freckles from what must have been my father. Next to Isabella I looked practically emaciated. My mother’s care had ended up destroying my body. I was found heavily malnourished, and with traces of various drugs in my system. I arrived at child services going through withdrawal so bad it nearly killed me, and ended up permanently stunting my growth. I would always be small for my age, with limbs as brittle and thin as sticks. 

I don’t know what influenced Renée’s decision to leave me behind. It could have very well been my sickly appearance. Perhaps it was the mandatory therapy sessions I needed to acclimate to my new life and ensure I was battling through the last vestiges of addiction that clung to me like cobwebs. Probably it was my clear favoritism of Charlie and my inability to emotionally connect to her and Isabella. Either way, when Renée fled to greener pastures with her real daughter in tow, she left me behind. Perhaps I was some sort of demented consolation prize. I don’t think Charlie was very consoled. The last threads of his marriage had snapped, his daughter had been snatched away before his very eyes, and he was left stuck with some girl he didn’t even want in the first place.

It must have been tragic. In fact, I’m sure it was. But everytime I look back on that day I am filled with the greatest joy. That day was the first step towards me calling the best man in the world my father.

…

Before Isabella came to our rainy, little town of Forks, I was living a remarkably happy and remarkably mundane life. So much so, it almost felt weird to call the beginning of it traumatic. I was only five when I was put into child services, and though my memories of that time were stronger than the average person’s due to my trauma, I managed to escape with only a mild dislike of idle chatter and a stronger inclination to men. Of course, I had my friends to thank for that. If it hadn’t been for them I would have still been a hopeless daddy’s girl, petrified of women and gossip and with a body too weak to keep up during PE.

My first few weeks of first grade followed those lines pretty closely. My teacher was, thankfully, male, so I was following along with the lessons, but I was too frightened to talk to anyone else in my class until one fateful show-and-tell when a boy named Eric Yorkie brought in Charlotte’s Web. It was my favorite book of all time, the first one I had ever had read to me, and the reason I was named Charlotte instead of Sarah or Katie or something along those lines. My therapist had been pretty insistent on my finding a first friend, and Eric seemed to fit the bill. He was male, and quiet for a six-year old, which ticked off all my boxes. He was also one of the smartest kids in the class, and unbearably kind. He traded his apple slices for my carrot sticks without a second thought.

He only had one flaw, and that was a girl named Angela Webber. Angela and Eric had been best friends since Preschool, and you never saw one without the other. They sat next to each other during reading-circle. They traded pudding cups. They even had matching friendship bracelets. Angela was like Isabella and Eric: quiet, kind, and smart. But just like Isabella, she was a girl, and it was just too much for me to handle. Luckily for me, after I lent him my umbrella one day after school, Eric had decided to sort of adopt me as his friend. For a couple of weeks he never left me alone, and by extension, neither did Angela. Exposure therapy wore down my walls until one day I found myself sitting with her behind the bleachers, wondering if Mike Newton really had cooties or if Lauren was just being dramatic.

Mike Newton was another unexpected asset to my recovery. He was possibly the loudest, chattiest, and most obnoxious kid in the first grade. The most popular too: his blond hair and blue eyes made him an instant hit with the girls and he could play tag better than almost anyone. He ran in an entirely different social circle than Eric, Angela, and I, so when he approached us after a spelling-test where we all earned a hundred and he spelled ‘house’ with a ‘w,’ we were understandably concerned.

We very quickly realized we had nothing to fear. Mike thought that us passing our spelling-test was “the coolest thing, even cooler than when I beat Tyler in that race yesterday” and that if we helped him with the next one he would “give you my mystery airheads for weeks, please Mom and Dad were so mad at me!” We did end up helping him (he only had the resolve to spare us one mystery airhead, but we forgave him for his slight) and after he ended up passing he stuck to us like gum. But Mike ended up helping me more than getting me accustomed to chatterboxes. He was an avid reader of comic books, Black Widow being a favorite of his, and for some reason he thought I compared the closest to the heroine. He managed to convince both himself and me that I would be the perfect addition to his capture-the-flag team. My body was far weaker than any other kid in my class, but no matter how many times I stumbled Mike was always there to pick me back up. When he saw how well I could throw the flag he even invited me to join his boys-only football skirmishes. After smoothing over the inevitable controversy by promising “she’s not REALLY a girl, just kinda looks like one,” and after the other boys saw my aim, I was accepted with open arms. My body caught up from there. I was still small for my age, and would always be, but my twig arms and legs started to swell with muscle until I could almost beat Tyler Crowley in a race.

Jessica Stanley was the last, and besides Eric, the most important addition to my circle of friends. As both a female and a chatterbox it was a double-whammy for my fragile psyche, but both Angela and Mike’s companionship allowed me to interact with her. Not only was she a girl, she was Mike’s definition of a girl, the kind that liked frills, and unicorns, and the color pink. But after she defended me against someone who called my hair frizzy by rattling off a list of celebrities with curls, she became even closer to me than Angela.

Our little group of five somehow survived the trials of both elementary and middle school with only a few bumps along the way. There was a brief period of time when Tyler convinced Eric and Mike that hanging out with girls was for sissies, and another when Angela, Jessica and I somehow managed to all get a crush on Mike at the same time, but other than that we were practically golden. It was Jessica who told me my homework-doodles were “ohmygod SO good” and Eric who got me a whole set of playdough for my birthday. It was Mike who kept including me in his little recess football games even through middle school, and Angela who would study with me until my grades were almost as good as hers. Even Tyler would defend me from people who would pick on the adopted girl with no mother. I loved my friends dearly.

But not as much as I loved Charlie.

It was all too easy to see the man never got over Renée’s disappearance. I didn’t love the woman, but I understood where he was coming from. She was flighty, but beautiful in her flightiness. Like a bird you can’t cage but can admire from afar. Our little two-bedroom house changed very little over the years. The cabinets stayed yellow, the walls stayed blue. Isabella’s room never changed, and Charlie ended up converting the attic into a bedroom for me instead of moving me in. He missed his biological daughter just as much as my ex-wife.

I didn’t care. He could miss them all he liked. All I wanted was for him to love me just as much, even more, than the people who had left him.

It took a while. I’d even like to say I helped him get over his loss. He refrained from drowning his sorrows in alcohol because he knew it was a trigger for me, and he didn’t have the time to grieve for his lost love because he was too busy putting me through therapy, doctor’s visits, elementary school. When I first called him Dad, about a few months in, he looked surprised but didn’t stop me.

Early on, when I was still too shy to make friends at school, he would invite his friend Billy Black over so I could play with his son.

I liked Billy. I liked his smile, and his fish fry, and how he would scoot me around on his wheelchair. I learned to braid using his hair, which was long and dark and straighter than mine could ever be. He babysat me whenever my dad was busy with his job as Chief of Police. He would bring his son, Jacob, and we would have sleepovers and argue about what story Billy would tell us that night. Jacob liked the story of the fierce knight who rode a large wolf instead of a horse. I liked the story of the princess in the tower who would sing to wolves and rule her kingdom through them.

Billy Black liked wolves. He said they were a symbol of the Quileute tribe. Billy and Jacob both lived in La Push, a Native American reservation just outside of Forks.

I would say that Jacob was like my best friend, but that wasn’t entirely true. That position belonged to Eric and Jessica. He was instead more like an annoying but loveable cousin. We would play-fight, and real-fight, and Jacob would brag how his hair was longer than mine and I would draw Quileute tribe tattoos on both our bodies with washie markers. And if Jacob was like my cousin then Billy was like my uncle. In those early years I eavesdropped on him more than once talking to my father about me and his loss of Renée and Isabella. He was a major part of the reason my dad stopped looking at me as the girl he was living with and started looking at me as his daughter.

It started off slow, as all good things do. Billy had somehow managed to convince Charlie to let me tag along on their fishing trips. I think Charlie would have invited me if he thought I would like it, but I was a fidgety sort of person and fishing was certainly too boring for Jacob to handle. Everyone except for Billy was surprised when I got up at 6:00 AM on the dot and sat patiently on the boat all day. I was bad at sitting still but something about being around Charlie gave me the strength to shut up and sit down. He had bought a little kid’s fishing kit just for me and explained with uncertain eyes how to cast a line and reel it in. I didn’t manage to catch anything, but I was over the moon at the attention.

I surprised Charlie again when I wanted to see how to clean and gut the fish he brought home. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to see some fish get split open, but that was the closest I had ever felt to the man and I wanted more of it. After watching a woman stab her arms with needles every day, blood and gore hardly startled me. So Charlie propped me up on the counter and showed me how to cut open the fresh bass he and Billy had caught and fry it up for dinner.

I think that day really kicked our father-daughter relationship in action. We had something in common. I liked fishing. He liked fishing. He slowly started introducing more and more of his interests to me. Sports television. Greasy diner food. Bad crime shows. He would even show me how to disassemble and clean his gun (without letting me touch it, of course). I don’t think he realized that before him, I didn’t really have any interests. I was soaking up the activities he was throwing out because he liked them, and I wanted nothing more than for him to like me. 

Soon, we were going fishing every Sunday, and going out to the diner together even more than that. He taught me how to throw a football and hit a baseball, and bought me a Seahawks jersey to match his. Every birthday he would take me out to a shooting range where we would knock clay pigeons out of the sky. When I punched a boy so hard I broke my knuckles after he made fun of Eric, he scolded the life out of me and then started to teach me self-defense. Every day after dinner we would sit in front of the television and I would ask him how many lives he had saved that day, as if he was a superhero instead of just the Chief of Police.

One day in fifth grade, I had cut my finger so deep on a swiss army knife he gave me for my birthday I had to get stitches. When I had approached him, the end of my shirt wrapped around my finger and my face screwed up from trying not to cry, he had been on the phone.

He took one look at my face, sighed, and told the person on the other end, “Hold on, my daughter needs me.” I had started bawling right away, but it wasn’t because of the cut. 

I loved Forks. I loved the way there was so much green it hurt your eyes. I loved the way it never stopped raining. I loved the fact that everyone knew everyone, that by third grade somehow everyone knew I was the child of a junky mother and the woman who adopted me didn’t want me. People didn’t move into Forks, they grew up there, and their parents grew up there, and their grandparents grew up there. Every kid in Forks hoarded gossip magazines and watched drama television and dreamed of a life bigger and better than the one they were living in.

I didn’t agree. I loved Forks, and I loved my friends, and more than anything in the world, I loved my father.

And nothing was going to take me away from him.


	2. Chapter 1

“Do you think he’s going to be jealous?”

It took me a while to comprehend the words, muffled as they were behind the hood of a faded red Chevy, and then some more to process it.

“What? Who?” There was the sound of metal clanging and my cousin-in-all-but-blood popped up from behind the hood, a scowl on his face and oil smeared across one cheek. I stifled a snort at his harried expression and bedraggled ponytail, knowing he’d just start ragging on me for goofing off.

“You know who,” he huffed, raking his fingers through the end of his ponytail. He grimaced as they knotted and stared at his hand in betrayal. I swung my legs around to the side from my position atop the car to face him.

“You can’t seriously mean Eric, can you?” I really didn’t know why it was taking Jacob this long to grasp how my relationships worked. He had expressed concern over distressing my boyfriend at least fifty times over the course of the summer, no matter how many times I assured him Eric really didn’t give a shit about me hanging out with other guys. I certainly never threw a fuss when he and Angela went on their little movie-dates.

“Look, I know what you’ve told me, but I was talking to Embry—”

“Ooh, you were talking to Embry,” I mocked. Jacob scowled at me and scratched at his hair harder. “Look, does Embry even have any experience dating?”

“Uh, yeah, he does!” Jacob shot back. “He dated Sasha last year, remember? And she dumped him after she caught him studying at another girl’s house?” My eyebrows shot up. Damn. Embry Call, huh? Never would have thought it.

“Well, I guess I stand corrected then, don’t I?” Jacob huffed at me and rolled his eyes. “Look, I told you, Eric could give less of a shit. I hang out with Mike all the time, don’t I? I’ve known you even longer than him.”

“Well yeah, but Eric knows Mike. He’s only met me a couple of times, and I live all the way out in La Push. I’m just saying—”

“You’re some handsome, mysterious stranger who’s going to sweep me off my feet?” I said dryly. Jacob’s dark skin flushed, and he pulled at his ponytail so hard the elastic snapped. I rolled my eyes and handed him a hairband from my wrist. “The difference between me and Embry Call is that Embry knew Sasha for a couple of weeks before he asked her out and has a bad taste in women. I’ve known Eric since the first grade and have an impeccable taste in men.” Jacob glared at me.

“Wasn’t Eric that kid who chased around a bunch of girls with a dead worm?” he asked. I frowned at him.

“He’s matured.”

“It was last summer.”

“Like you’re all that funny yourself! Quil’s told me all about the stupid jokes you and Embry make when you guys are goofing off!” Jacob scowled.

“Quil’s a dirty snitch.”

I rolled my eyes. “Quil’s your best friend.” I frowned at him. “Somehow I don’t think Embry Call’s been talking about jealous girls for my benefit here. Why would he care that we’re hanging out? He knows we’re just friends. Unless…” My eyes narrowed. “I’m not the jealous girl he’s talking about here.”

“Technically Eric would be the jealous girl,” Jacob mumbled. My eyes shot open in realization.

“You have a girlfriend!”

“What?” Jacob looked panicked. “No!”

“You want a girlfriend,” I amended, scratching at my ankle. His silence was enough of a response for me. “Damn, good for you? I don’t remember the last time you’ve been interested in anyone.” I tilted my head to the side, considering. I knew it was hard getting a date in La Push. People there were even closer than they were in Forks, and I knew it felt weird to start dating someone you’ve known all your life. It was part of the reason Eric and I had gotten so many weird looks when we got together. The only reason I could think of that Jacob wanted a girlfriend was if he had a specific girl in mind. It was funny, the only girl I ever remembered him having a crush on was…

“No!” I gasped. Jacob shot me an irritated look.

“You know I don’t know what you mean when you do that, right?”

“Isabella?” I started laughing when I saw the look of shock and dread cross his face. “Holy shit! My own sister? That’s low, dude.” He swatted at me, and I half heartedly dodged.

“She’s hardly your sister.” I let out a short grunt of acknowledgement. Isabella had stopped visiting Forks when she was fourteen, declaring it the worst place on earth to spend her time. I had taken great offense to that, and when it was time for Charlie and I to go to California to visit her instead, I had put my foot down and stayed with Billy and Jacob out of anger. After that it had become a tradition, where I would spend a week or two every year out in La Push. I hadn’t seen Isabella in years.

“Okay, sure. But that’s all going to change when she comes over. We’re going to be doing sooooo much sisterly bonding!” Jacob raised an eyebrow. “We’re gonna like, paint our nails and shit. Fucking best friends forever.”

He snorted, ducking down behind the hood. “Yeah, sure.” I glared and kicked at the top of the Chevy lightly, ignoring his squawk of protest.

“I can’t believe I thought you were fixing this thing up out of the goodness of your heart. Do you even remember what she looks like, creep?” Jacob’s laugh trickled up from behind the hood.

“I have been in your house, you know.” I laughed a little, grimacing. If Isabella was anything like I remembered, she was going to be highly disturbed by the number of her pictures decorating our house. “And I’m not just doing this out of the goodness of my heart. Your dad’s paying me.” I frowned, tapping at my thigh.

“Yeah, about that, do you know when it’s gonna be done? Isabella’s coming tomorrow, you know.” Jacob popped up from behind the hood, a grin on his face and his hair already sliding out from his new ponytail.

“This baby’s gonna be done by today. I just need to wash it up, take it for a test drive, and if all goes well, it will be good by tomorrow.” He sounded extremely proud of himself, and rightfully so.

“Holy shit, really Jacob?” I grinned at him. “That’s like, really cool. You know that’s cool, right? How many fifteen-year olds can say they fixed up a friggin truck?” Jacob laughed happily.

“Guess you could say it really makes me stand out from any other guys, huh?” He winked at me, purposefully making his voice smarmy. I made a weird motion where I somehow both chuckled and cringed in disgust at the same time.  
“Alright, creep. You’ll certainly have a head start. Poor girl just arrives in Forks and you’ve already pretty much gotten her a car.”

“Is that a blessing?” I sideyed him for a moment before smiling.

“Yeah, sure.” He looked surprised at the lack of humour in my tone. “You’re a good guy, you know?” He glared at me, dark cheeks flushing, and stared at his shoes.

“Shut up,” he grumbled. “Aren’t you meeting up with Charlie for dinner?” I checked my watch and swore lightly.

“Oh shit, yeah. I think I remember Isabella being a bit of a health nut. This might be the last time Charlie and I can have an actual meal!” I said dramatically. Jacob rolled his eyes.

“Not eating absolute trash doesn’t make you a health nut, you know that, right?”

“She can pry my greasy fast food out of my cold, dead fingers,” I said seriously, mock-glaring at him. I check my watch again and sigh, hopping off the roof of the truck. “See ya, Jacob! Tell Embry and Quil I say hi!”

I puff out my cheeks and stare to the sky, a light drizzle already falling in welcome to the girl living in the land of sun.

...

The rain had only strengthened by the time Dad and I were rolling out of our garage in his police cruiser. I was, very generously in my opinion, sat in the back seat so that dearest sister and dearest father could catch up in the front. It also made me feel like some sort of hardened criminal. I took a quick selfie of myself, slapping on a tortured expression and pinning my free hand behind my back like I was handcuffed, before sending it to my group of friends.

Me: Guess what I got caught for?  
Eric<3: Drugs

My mouth popped open, and I stared at my phone in disbelief.

Me: Wow  
Eric<3: SHIT  
Eric<3:I DIDNT MEAN IKE THATXJBTA  
Me: Hahhahh wtf man  
Eric<3: :(:(:(

I grinned quietly down at the screen of my Nokia. After Eric didn’t follow up for a couple of seconds, I sighed, resting my head on my hand and watching the raindrops chase each other down the tinted glass. Dad cleared his throat uncomfortably, and I watched his puppy-dog eyes flicker to me in the rearview mirror.

“Everything alright, Lottie?” he asked gruffly. I grinned back at him, shooting a thumbs-up. Lottie as a nickname started pretty early on to avoid confusing our names, and it had caught on pretty quickly. Almost everyone called me that now. My phone buzzed two more times and I glanced down at the messages.

Jess: MANSLAUGHTER  
Angie: What did you get for last night’s math homework

“I, uh, noticed your lights were on pretty late last night,” Dad drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, “Were the nightmares bothering you again?” I puffed out my cheeks, considering. The nightmares were what me, my dad, and my old therapist called the dreams I had been getting every night for pretty much as long as I could remember. From what Dr. Abrams told me, it was a pretty normal response to my trauma. Only I could never remember what exactly would happen in my dreams, and I never stopped getting them, even when life before third grade became a blurry memory. It didn’t feel like it had something to do with my past either; we called them nightmares, but I never really woke up scared. More with a feeling of vague danger, like I was staring at a tiger in a zoo and knew if the glass wasn’t there I would be screwed.

They became such a constant I just stopped mentioning them. That was, until I heard the news that Isabella was coming to stay with us. Out of nowhere they intensified, and I started waking up with distant screams ringing in my ears and the color red, like spilt blood, flashing in my eyes. And above all, a heavy sense of anticipation weighing me down, as if something big was coming. Like I was a girl in a horror movie, and the killer was standing behind me, knife poised to strike.

The dreams still didn’t scare me, but they certainly freaked me out enough to tell my dad about them. He had offered to call Dr. Abrams, but I declined. I had finally gotten my shit together enough to stop seeing her in the sixth grade, and the last thing I wanted was to start that up again because of some dumb dreams. Those kinds of rumours spread like wildfire in my high school.

Besides, it wasn’t the nightmares that kept me up last night.

“No, Dad, it wasn’t that. I was just…” I struggled. “Excited. I guess.” As if on cue, my phone buzzed in my hand, and a scowl split my face when I saw what it read.

Micycle: Ur getting ur sister now right???

Alright. So maybe I was lying. Maybe I wasn’t as jazzed about my sister’s arrival as I let on. But I just couldn’t help myself! Isabella had been living away from us for twelve years, and my dad still kept her pictures on the walls and her bedroom the exact same. I knew that my dad considered me his daughter. He introduced me as his daughter. He signed my parent permission-slips. He taught me how to fight, and use a gun, and gut a fish. But I had a damn good memory, and the months my dad spent longingly staring at pictures of Isabella and Renée were hard to forget. We were both his daughters, but Isabella was biological. She came from his body, I came from child services.

I couldn’t say that to my dad, of course. Even now I could see the smile-lines around his eyes crinkle in the rearview mirror. Dad was thrilled at the thought of us getting along. He had certainly spent enough time talking about how excited he was that “his girls were gonna be together.” His girls. What exactly were the credentials for that position? I spent years of my life working for that title, and all Isabella had to do was pop out of the womb?

“Lottie?” Dad’s voice was worried now. Shit. “Are you okay? Did I say something wrong?” I forced out a laugh, and grinned at him.

“Nah. I told you I’m just excited.” His forehead crinkled. “And… nervous. I guess.” It wasn’t a lie. If my dad wanted us to get along, then I would sure as hell make sure we would get along. Only problem was, I had no idea how to go about doing that. I tried to remember what Isabella was like. Introverted, I remembered. And clumsy. Liked to read. I started to regret not visiting her in California with Dad.

Oh shit! California! What had I missed while I was out in La Push? Had Isabella started weaseling her way back into Dad’s life? Had she started convincing him that she was his real daughter, that I was just some bastard child of a junky destined for the same fate as her mother? Had she—

“You don’t have anything to be nervous about, sweetie,” my Dad promised. “Bella’s great. Really sweet.” I blew out a gust of air and counted the stains in the car’s upholstery.

Sweet. Right. I knew Isabella wasn’t a bad person. I knew that! But it was hard. Whenever I thought about Dad wrapping his arm around her shoulder, or kissing her head, or even watching shitty television with her, I just grew inexplicably angry.  
Dr. Abrams called me ‘unnecessarily possessive.’ Whatever. I had worked hard to call him my dad, and I wasn’t going to let anyone take him away.

...

Dad and I decided to wait by his police cruiser while the plane unloaded. The Port Angeles airport was surprisingly crowded, everyone rushing off to grab their baggage, grab their umbrellas, and buy their umbrellas at the overpriced airport stand if they forgot to bring any. I didn’t know what kind of moron wouldn’t bring rain-gear to Washington. In any case, it was better luck letting my sister find us than us her.

I had even made one of those welcoming signs! I was rather proud of it, actually. It was supposed to read “WELCOME TO FORKS ISABELLA,” only I ran out of space on the sign so the last three letters were missing. It still seemed to be effective, because while I was busy tapping at puddles with my rainboots I heard my dad call my sister’s name. I stiffened and looked up at the girl who had been tormenting my insecurities for the last few months.

At first glance, she didn’t look like much. She was clearly miserable in the rain, the furry hood of her parka slung all the way over her head. She was carrying her baggage in one hand and a small cactus in the other, raindrops plastering her hair to the sides of her face and rolling off the bridge of her nose. Still, even looking like a drowned rat I could tell she was pretty. Not conventionally attractive, maybe, but her dark hair, eyes, and lashes made her already pale skin look even brighter. She had a classically beautiful face, and the kind of soft, slender body that was granted through good genes instead of exercise. Still, pretty as she was, it was the hints of my father in her chin and her eyes that intimidated me.

Isabella stumbled to a halt in front of us. She smiled tightly, her eyes flickering from me to my sign.

“I, uh, I go by Bella,” she said stiffly. I smiled back at her as Dad went in for his classic one-arm hug.

“It’s good to see you, Bells,” he said, making sure she didn’t fall over. My smile flickered briefly at the nickname. “You haven’t changed much. How’s Renée?”

“Mom’s fine,” Isabella — sorry, Bella — said, looking quickly at me and then away. My eyebrows rose. Was she concerned about how I’d react to hearing her call Renée Mom? That was… sweet. I guess. A little presumptuous, but with good intentions. “It’s good to see you too, Dad. And, um— “

“Call me Lottie,” I answered for her. “Everybody else does. It’s nice to see you, Isa- um, Bella. It’s been a while.” Bella nodded, staring at her feet. Definitely introverted.

“Yeah, it has,” she said softly. I couldn’t think of anything more to say, so I bit my lip and grabbed her bags. She looked up at me quickly. “Oh, you don’t have to—”

“It’s fine!” I said cheerfully, helping Dad load up the back of the cruiser. “What kind of host would I be if I didn’t help you with your bags?” Yeah, that’s right. Host. You’re just a guest here, I’m part of the family. “Anyway, you look totally miserable in the rain. You should get inside before you catch a cold!”

Bella rounded the side of the cruiser, and looked surprised when I pulled open the passenger door for her. She seemed horrified when I explained to her I was taking the back so she could catch up with Dad, repeatedly insisting I shouldn’t go to the trouble for her. Turns out we’re both stubborn as hell, and we argued for a couple of seconds before Dad, looking happy that we were ‘getting along,’ suggested we sit in the back together.

That was how I found myself buckled up in the back seat of a police cruiser with a girl I had been cursing out in my head for basically my whole life, and a cactus. I was infinitely more happy with the presence of the cactus. Bella had seated the little thing on her lap, and was tenderly brushing raindrops off its prickers, as if to preserve the arid nature of its birthplace.

My Dad clicked his seatbelt from the front seat and craned his head over the seat, announcing, “I found a good car for you. Really cheap.” Bella nearly dropped her cactus.

“What kind of car?” she looked suspicious.

“Well it’s a truck, actually. A Chevy.” Bella narrowed her eyes a little.

“Where did you find it?”

“You remember Billy and Jacob Black from out in La Push?” I asked. She looked at me, a little confused. “Um, fishing trips? Long hair? Ring any bells?” She looked a little embarrassed, and shook her head. I shrugged.

“Billy’s in a wheelchair now, so he offered to sell me his truck cheap,” Dad explained. Bella seemed a little bit worried about the maintenance and I zoned out as they chattered, flicking through my text messages. Angela seemed a little aggravated I hadn’t responded to her homework question and I sent her a reminder I was still on the road. Jacob had sent me a picture of him and Billy washing the Chevy, grinning at the sky as the rain helped clear away the suds. I smiled. Bella better like the truck. Jacob and Billy had worked their asses off to fix it up.

I tuned back into the conversation, or lack of it, when Bella let out a small noise. She was staring with dread out at the veritable jungle of trees passing by. It must have been a shock for someone living in Arizona to see that much greenery. Everything had leaves, and the stuff that didn’t was blanketed in moss and lichen.

“Just think of it as a whole bunch of cactuses,” I offered helpfully. “Except, you know, not prickly. And not… cactuses.” She stared at me. “Or is it cacti? I could never remember.”

“I think they’re both right,” she mumbled.

“Oh, cool.” I nodded my head wisely. “Oh, yeah! You like to read and stuff, right?” She gave me a look.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so.” I grinned at her and waved my phone.

“I have a friend I think you’d like. Angela Weber? She likes reading too, and from what I hear you’re both super smart.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” she said softly.

“Yeah. Uh, Forks is a small town. We don’t get a lot of new people, so everybody’s talking about you.” Somehow she got even paler. “So I’ve been talking to my friends about you. I’ll introduce you when you come into school. It’ll be easier when you have friends right away, right?” She looked at me, surprised, and for a second I thought I had said something wrong. But then she gave me a sweet, slow smile. It was a Charlie Swan smile, and for a second I was a little stunned.

“Thank you. That’s very nice of you.” I grunted a little, my ears turning hot. It really wasn’t something to thank me for. I had been talking to my friends about Bella, but then again, everyone was talking about Bella. Everyone wanted to know about her, Mike and Tyler especially. It made me feel a little uncomfortable, inviting her into my group. She was already invading my life with my dad, why should she get to take my friends, too? But then I saw my dad grinning at me through the rearview mirror and I felt a weight lift off my chest.

“Yeah, no problem.”

...

Bella ended up liking the truck, which made me feel a little bit better. She seemed like a genuinely nice person, which was both endearing and aggravating. If she was a stuck-up bitch, it would have been a lot easier to ignore the possibility of her stealing away my friends and family.

By the time we got home, the rain had lightened into a thick mist. It hung heavy in the air, swelling the sky with gray clouds and threading fog through the trees. Bella perked up as soon as she saw the faded red pickup in the driveway, and she fussed over it a bit while Dad brought her bags inside. I stayed to watch her, stuffing my hands in the pockets of my orange windbreaker and ignoring the chill that prickled goosebumps on my skin. It was too bad Jacob wasn’t here to see her reaction, he would have had a fit.

“S’ pretty nice, right?” I said cheerfully. She startled, as if suddenly realizing she was being watched, and then flushed. That was one downside to having skin that pale, I thought, watching the red run from her cheeks down her neck in a matter of seconds.

“Uh, uh yeah,” she stammered. “It was really nice of Charlie — Er, Dad,” she corrected, noticing my pursed lips. “It was really nice of Dad to get me a car. I was planning to buy one myself, but this is easier.”

“Don’t want to go to school in a police cruiser?” I asked. She scrunched up her nose, and then looked at me guiltily. I shrugged. “It’s fine. I guess I’m used to it.” People at school had varying reactions to my choice of ride. It certainly slowed traffic, which was annoying as hell. Mike loved catching a ride with me, the childish excitement of riding in a cop car persisting even in his late teens.

“If you want, I can give you a ride,” Bella offered. I looked at her in surprise.

“Uh, sure. That would be great.” I said without thinking. She gave me a tight smile, and looked down at her feet. I fidgeted with the zipper on my jacket. I had always had trouble keeping my hands still, especially when I was anxious.

“The house looks… the same,” she said awkwardly. I looked at it, and frowned. She wasn’t wrong. The two-bedroom had faced the rain and snow of Forks’s weather for twelve years without so much as a paint job. The walls were the same faded white, the green shutters chipped from being slammed by the wind. Autumn leaves still clogged the gutters, and the overgrown oak trees brushed tender fingers over the shingled roof and windows. I saw the light in one of them flicker on as Dad moved Bella’s stuff into her room. I nodded to it.

“Dad should be almost done.” I glanced at her. “You must be jet lagged. Hungry, maybe? Dad and I had a big lunch, but if you want us to order a pizza—”

“Tired, mostly,” Bella interrupted. “Do you think Charlie would mind if I just went to sleep?” She didn’t bother to correct herself that time. I looked at her through narrowed eyes, before shrugging. Hey, if she didn’t consider him her dad, it was all the better for me.

“Nah,” I told her, “Dad always goes to bed early. He needs to be up at six every morning for the station.” Bella nodded, gave her pickup one last pat, and headed inside.

Dad was already back down in the kitchen, starting up the coffee-machine for the next day. He gave Bella a tight smile which she returned before heading up into the communal bathroom. He played anxiously with the coffee filters until he heard the water running, before turning to me apprehensively.

“So?” he whispered. I raised my eyebrows at him, and he nodded to the driveway. “How’d it go out there?” My face twisted into a sour expression. Had he taken Bella’s bags so we would have the chance to bond? Resentment coiled low in my stomach, but I took one look at his puppy-dog face and I squashed it like a bug.

“Great!” I said, plastering on a cheery smile. “I really think we’re going to really get along. Be the,” I took a deep breath through my nose, “Be the best of friends.” Dad snorted.

“You don’t have to be friends,” he said earnestly. “You’re sisters.” My smile twitched. He affectionately cuffed my head before turning to the coffee-machine and it dropped, a dark scowl falling into place.

I tried not to stomp up the stairs, but my feet still hit heavier than I intended, and when I reached the second floor Bella was standing in the doorway, staring at me. She must have gone to her room to fetch some toiletries because she was holding a shower caddy in one hand and a nightshirt in the other. She was looking at me like I was a wild animal and it took me a couple of seconds to remember the dark expression still painting my face. I tried my best to wipe it off and smile at her, but judging by the small step she took back I don’t think it worked as well as I intended.

“How’s, uh, how’s your room?” I asked.

“It’s fine,” she mumbled. “Look, you know you didn’t need to stay in the attic, right? You could have moved into my room. I wouldn’t have minded.” I stared at her for a few seconds, processing. My fists involuntarily balled and the little thread of tension in my stomach that had been winding up all day snapped.

“What, so everything revolves around you, huh?” I snapped. Bella jolted, the bottles of shampoo and conditioner in her caddy rattling. “Is that it?” For a second I felt the greatest feeling of satisfaction, my anger burning hot in my stomach and up through my chest. I opened my mouth, weeks of insults rolling up to my tongue. Years of repressed jealousy boiling in my veins. I was about to start when the sound of movement below interrupted me. The sound of Dad bumbling about in the kitchen, cleaning up for the night, happy that his two daughters were getting along. I slowly closed my mouth, closed my eyes, and counted to five.

“E-Excuse me?” Bella stammered. I opened my eyes. She was looking at me like I had just killed her cat. I smiled weakly.

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s been, uh, it’s been a long day.” I forced a laugh, and scratched the back of my neck as if sheepish. “It’s that time of a month, you know?”

“It’s fine,” Bella said slowly. She watched me warily as I stepped to the side, clearing a path for her to the bathroom. “No harm done.”

“No harm done,” I repeated, watching her disappear into the bathroom. “See you tomorrow!” The lock clicked shut. I groaned lowly, rubbing my eyes.

Stupid! I was so damn stupid.

The entrance to my room was just down the hall from Bella’s and my Dad’s. Only, instead of a door, it was a hatch in the ceiling leading up to the attic. That was a part of the reason I never wanted to switch rooms like Bella suggested: Contrary to what one might believe, sleeping in an attic could be pretty cool.

It could also not be pretty cool. Having an attic bedroom in the rainiest town in the United States certainly had its downsides. As a positive, I had become an expert at sealing leaks. After all, I got the chance to practice my craft after every major storm.  
My room also had the chance to escape Renée’s eclectic decorating. We hardly had the budget for something elaborate, but the room felt cozy to me. The walls were low, obviously, the sides slanting into the sharp point of the roof, but it was wide. There were two windows overlooking the front and back yard. I had a small twin bed under the front window and a heavy oak desk under the back one. The sheets and my carpeting were a dark green, the walls and pine dresser dark brown. A single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling cast the whole room in a warm amber glow.

After hauling myself into my room I flopped down onto the carpeting. Stress and anger made my fingers itch and I let out a grunt of frustration, tearing off my windbreaker and slinging it across the room. It hit the wall and slumped to the ground to join the collection of bras, socks, and shorts that were decorating the floor. When my fingers still tingled with the desire to move I headed over to the desk at the back of my room.

My desk was large, with several massive drawers in the sides, but I never used it for homework. I did that in the kitchen while Dad grabbed himself a beer and cooled off after his day at the station. No, my desk held far more entertaining treasures. Ones that could have my fingers pushing and squeezing and moving to their heart’s content.

Eric kickstarted my passion when he bought me a whole pack of playdough for my seventh birthday. I loved squishing and molding the clay, the smell of it when it popped out of the can, and the way the colors looked when they mixed together. When Dad saw that I liked making little creatures and people instead of just hammering at it, he invested in real clay for me to use. That was even better; the clay needed to be conditioned before it was used and it could take whole minutes of just kneading and pounding away at it before it became soft. It kept its shape too, and I could bake, paint, and preserve my creations once I was done with them. I enjoyed drawing and painting too, but it was too meticulous to satisfy me when I was in a mood. Creating something flat was nothing when I could feel something take shape beneath my fingers, physically pushing eyes and cheekbones into existence and edging out the scales of a dragon with my nails.

There were so many clay creatures in my bedroom it looked like I had an infestation. Tiny rabbits and mice clustering in the corners, birds and bats perched on my headboard, unicorns and dragons lined my shelves. My proudest creation, a bust of my dad that had won my middle school’s art contest, looked over the room from on top of the dresser.

When I sat down at my desk, I didn’t reach for my professional clay. It didn’t need conditioning, and I wasn’t in a mood to actually make something. Instead, I reached for a little pot of playdough, a last sentimental remnant from Eric’s gift. The smell when I peeled off the cap was familiar. It was comforting. I plopped the playdough into my hands and began to knead.

I could hear the sound of Bella in the shower below me. Below that, Dad finishing up the last of the dishes. It had begun to rain again, the wind letting out a low wail. The branches of the trees pawed beseechingly at my window, begging to come in out of the storm. I pushed, and I pulled, and I pinched, and one by one my emotions disentangled and formed a neat line.

Anger. Guilt. Resentment. Fear. Above all, envy so intense I could taste it on my tongue. Dad hadn’t shoved me out of the house for Bella yet, but it was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? Dad hadn’t wanted me when I was adopted. Renée didn’t want me when she fled to Phoenix with Bella. Dad told me I was his daughter, and that he loved me, but maybe he was just lonely? Maybe I was just the best he could deal with, and now that shiny, new Bella was here with her quiet demeanor and pretty face and Charlie-smile he would see what he was missing out on?

I let out a puff of air as I looked at my hands and realized what I was making. Without thinking I had shaped cheekbones, poked in deepset eyes, pinched out a sharp nose and rounded chin. The colors were off, of course, her complexion was a runny green and brown and she had bits of yellow and pink in her hair, but it was all too clear what I had made. I stared at my hands, and the crudely-formed face of my sister stared back at me.

Something dark broiled inside of me. My fingers itched harder than they ever had before and with a quiet snarl and hiss of breath I squashed Isabella Swan back into a useless lump of dough. I panted for a second, a smile briefly flashing before it faltered.  
It had felt good, sure, for that brief second, but it was a nasty sort of good, like squishing a bug or popping a pimple. And just as soon as I did it the satisfaction was chased by shame. What would Dad have thought, if he had seen me? It certainly wouldn’t have been a contest who was the better daughter then, that was for sure.

I groaned, and pressed the balls into my eyes so hard I saw stars. I hated this. I hated that I had to share my dad after so many years of it just being us. I even hated my sister, sweet and unassuming as she was. But if my dad wanted us to be happy together, then I would make sure we were happy. I would make sure that Bella’s and my time in Forks was as pleasant and peaceful as possible.

How hard could that be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all your kudos! Special thanks to Madgrins_ofthe_cat23 for being my very first reviewer! Hope you all enjoy this next chapter!


	3. Chapter 2

I was in a room. I couldn’t tell what it looked like, my eyes were full of a thick red liquid. But I could feel the bite of marble against my knees, and the sound of my harsh breaths echoed widely.

There were other people in the room, too. I couldn’t see them but I knew they were there, men grumbling in their throat, the soft chatter of women, even the occasional whisper of a small child. They were waiting, I could tell that from the hush of their voices and the anticipation that seemed to hang in the air as if on a thread, ready to snap at any moment.

There was a shuffling from behind me, the ruffling of fabric inches from my ear. The voices in the room quieted, and a hand, hard and frozen to the touch, threaded itself into my hair. A thumb as hard as granite swept back and forth across my neck in some odd parody of comfort.

A pair of lips made of ice touched against my temple. I could feel them part against my skin, and the man behind me began to sing.

I couldn’t tell if the voice was ancient or that of a child. It crooned out words in a language both familiar and alien, and when the song dipped in cadence the voice was a low growl, and when it lilted it was high and playful. The pair of lips had no breath, but when I tried to move away I was pressed ever more insistently into them, and they were so cold my skin burned .

The song reached a crescendo, and as if on accompaniment, a scream tore from the air. It ripped the veil of silence like tissue-paper, and more began to follow. A room full of screaming, so harsh it hurt my ears. They pressed against every wall of the room, bouncing and echoing and ricocheting until my hands were clamped over my ears and tears were leaking hot from my eyes.

And still the voice sang. 

“Ti amo, ti amo,” the sound of tearing flesh. The spatter of something warm and wet against my face, mixing with my tears. A frozen tongue traced across my face, lapping up the liquid, and I realized with a sudden flash of fear that the lips on my temple hadn’t moved, and there was more than one person beside me.

One by one the screams faltered and silenced, like the snapping of a cord pulled too taut, until only one remained. It was with a sinking sense of horror that I realized it was the voice of a young child. Reedy and high, hiccuping with the force of its anguish. A sob forced its way out of my throat, and I was hushed quietly. In an instant the child was cut off with nothing but a quiet gurgle.

“Ti amo, ti amo,” and I realized fear tasted like hot copper pennies and the salt of your own tears.

“Ti amo, ti amo,” and I heard a third voice, so low I felt the ground beneath my knees shake with it, a voice so weathered with age I could hear the years it had felt.

“Ti amo, ti amo,” and the red in my eyes flattened like a canvas, puppets of shadow dancing across it, twisting and writhing to the tune of the song that pulsed in my veins and pulled screams from the air.

The figures danced, and I danced with them, wearing a dress of flesh and sinew, baring a smile full of teeth I plucked from the mouths of those who had sung along. And the fear had turned to rage, and the rage had turned to power, and the power had turned into something hotter, sicker, more delectable by far.

...

A hand on my arm, and I jolted awake, gasping heavily. I had kicked my covers off somewhere in the night and the chill of the morning air was freezing the sweat that slicked my body. I reached a hand to wipe some off my forehead when I realized my fingers were trembling so badly I could barely get them to work.

Something warm curled around my hand. I looked up to see my dad carefully wrap my fingers into his own before pressing a warm kiss against my knuckles. I closed my eyes, feeling his mustache scratch against my skin, and counted my breaths until the trembles ceased.

A couple of seconds passed, and I opened my eyes, shooting my dad a sheepish grin. It didn’t seem to diminish the concern on his face.

“You had another one, Lottie?” he asked quietly. I sighed, peeling a sweaty curl off of my forehead, and glanced to the little alarm-clock on my dresser. 6:15.

“I missed breakfast with you?” I asked, avoiding his question. He furrowed his eyebrows and sat on the edge of my bed. I happily clambered next to him, appreciating his warmth in the January chill.

“You almost never wake up past 5:30. I figured I’d let you get some extra sleep.” He looked sad. “Guess I probably should have woken you up, though, huh?”

“What?” I frowned at him, rubbing his shoulder. “No, Dad. You were right, I probably needed the sleep.” His forehead creased, and he wrapped a bear arm around my shoulder. I happily snuggled into his side. He smelled warm and familiar, like coffee and gun oil and old spice deodorant.

We sat in silence for a couple of moments before Dad spoke, “Do you remember anything from this one?” I scrunched up my nose in thought. Like usual the details of my dreams had slipped through my hands like smoke. Like the past couple of weeks I remembered the color red and the sound of screaming. Something new, the taste of copper and salt. Other than that…

“Not really,” I admitted. I stretched and Dad frowned at the sound of my spine popping and cracking. 

“You keep doing that you’re gonna hurt yourself,” he grumbled, and I grinned at him, twisting until my lower back crackled. He glared at me and I snickered, before frowning.

“Hey, how am I going to get to school? I don’t want to make you late to the station.” He heaved himself off my bed, patting at the gun at his side absentmindedly. I eyed it with great interest. I had taken plenty of shooting lessons in my time, and had spent more than a few birthdays at a shooting range, but Dad hardly even let me look at his gun, much less pick it up to see how it felt in my hands. It wasn’t like I would use it or anything, but I only ever got to help clean and disassemble it, and that was if I was lucky.

“You’re not going to,” Dad said, “I’m leaving now. Bella said she was going to offer you a ride to school, didn’t she?” He grinned softly. “C’mon, don’t tell me you haven’t gotten tired of being the police car girl.”

“Being the police car girl is cool!” I countered, thumping my chest with my hand. “I’ve got street cred.” Dad snorted and tousled my hair. 

“I left you some coffee in the pot,” he told me, lowering a tiny wooden ladder down the attic-hatch. I preferred just swinging my way up into my room and hopping down to the second floor, but Dad wasn’t quite as limber as I was. “And there are some english muffins in the toaster that should be almost done. Your lunch money’s on the table and—”

“Call me if you need me, but preferably during my lunch hours because I don’t want to set a bad example for the interns,” I recited, and grinned when he mock-glared. “Wow, Dad, it’s almost like I haven’t heard that everyday for the past seventeen years of my life.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” he huffed, head disappearing through the floor. I stuck my tongue out at him until I was sure he could no longer see me. As soon as he was gone the weight of my nightmare returned and I sighed, rubbing at my eyes. That was the first time my dreams had left me with that intense of a feeling of unease. I frowned, and smacked my lips. I needed to brush my teeth. I could still taste copper on my tongue.

...

Lukewarm coffee and mint toothpaste, while a rather repulsive combination, did its job in clearing out my mouth. I decided to forgo the english muffins, though, the dream had killed my appetite and left my whole body feeling tight and uncomfortable. I wasn’t exactly someone who needed much food, either, even when I wanted it. Being the only kid in my grade less than five feet had very little advantages, but at least I would be able to fit into a grate when the zombie apocalypse came.

When I arrived downstairs Bella was standing in the family room, staring at the row of photos on the mantel with a twisted expression. It seemed like she had discovered the first of the pictures, and just like I suspected, she was less than thrilled about it. When I cleared my throat she jumped a little, and looked instantly wary when she saw me. After last night, I supposed I couldn’t blame her.

“You all good?” I asked, because she looked very not good. She kept scratching at the long sleeves of her sweater and glancing anxiously around the house. I wondered if she had claustrophobia; our house certainly wasn’t the most spacious of accommodations. I guessed everything in Phoenix was open compared to Forks: Open sky, open houses, even open clothing. No long sleeves and jackets when summers reached over a hundred degrees.

“Uh, yeah, I just—” She looked down at her feet and took in a deep breath. “Do you mind if we go to school now? I know its early, but—” 

“That’s fine.” I cut her off. She looked up hopefully. “Dad usually drops me off when he goes to work. Normally I’m there even earlier than this.”

“Isn’t that weird?” she asked, going to grab her shoes and her parka. I pulled on my own obnoxiously orange windbreaker. Dad got me a jacket in the color when he first got me, saying I was so small he needed a way to find me in a crowd, and the tradition had stuck.

“I guess so?” I shrugged. “Lots of kids get dropped off early because their parents need to go to work. I have a friend, Mike, whose folks run a sporting goods store so they boot him out pretty early. We usually hang out.”

“Oh,” she said quietly, grabbing the house key. As soon as she opened the door I darted across the driveway to avoid the rain, splashing through the puddles that had collected overnight. I waited by the pickup for Bella while she locked up, raindrops tapping on the top of my coat and soaking the ends of my hair where the humidity made them bush past my hood. Downsides of having curls in the wettest place in the US, I guess.

“Sorry,” she said when she reached the truck. I hummed noncommittally and jumped inside as soon as she clicked the lock. It was nice and warm inside the car. The Blacks must have cleaned the interior too, because the fast-food grease stains had been scrubbed out of the tan upholstery and the car didn’t stink of tobacco quite so badly. I snapped a quick picture and sent it to Jacob with a smiley face.

The engine roared to life when Bella started up the car, which I was used to but startled her. She seemed happy that the radio still functioned and left it on the channel it turned on to, something mellow and jazzy. The sound filled the car, blending with the noise of the engine and the tapping of the rain against the hood.

Forks High School, like most other attractions in the town, was just off the highway. Bella found it without much help, but she did raise her eyebrow at the building, or rather, buildings, that the school was composed of. The high school, instead of being one cohesive unit, was made up of several structures like squat maroon bricks that were connected by covered archways.

“It doesn’t even look like a school,” Bella whispered to herself as she pulled in at the front office. I raised my eyebrows but decided not to argue, she had more experience in the area than I did.

“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked, staring at the hedge-lined building with a twist to my lips. 

“It’s alright,” she said, betrayed by the look of clear anxiety on her face. “You’re fine with waiting in the car?”

“Better than waiting in the rain,” I shrugged, and pulled out my phone. Mike had sent me about a dozen texts, concerned about my late arrival and feeling lonely in our shared Physics class. He seemed distressed when I told him I’d be showing up later than usual if I kept getting rides from Bella. I felt a little bad, but couldn’t deny not riding in the cruiser carried a certain sense of satisfaction. The pickup was an ancient, hulking behemoth of a car, but in Forks that sort of thing blended in. Something with red and blue flashing lights on the hood could only blend in near a police station or a rave.

I looked up when Bella opened the driver’s door. She looked slightly relieved, and I guessed all had gone well with her schedule.

“What’s your first class?” I asked her as she pulled her car into the slowly building line of traffic. 

“Mr. Mason, AP Lit,” she mumbled. I nodded, Eric was in that class. I shot him a text to look out for her.

“Building three?” I asked. She nodded her head. “Cool, I’m in two. Guess I won’t have to walk too far then.” She looked surprised, and then guilty.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“S’ fine.”

As soon as we parked Bella was out of the car, hood over her head and hands shoved into her pockets. I guess she was trying to look inconspicuous, except that every other kid in the school was too dead on their feet to move quicker than a slow meander. I meandered my own way to building two, where I switched out my rain boots for sneakers. After hanging up my coat and shoving my boots into a cubby I stepped into Physics, where Mike was waiting for me with a scowl on his face.

“What the hell, Lottie?” he hissed when I sat in front of him. I ignored him for a second while I pulled out my planner and copied down the homework. I didn’t get very far before he tugged at the ends of my hair, and I turned around and glared at him.

“You pull at my hair, and I pull yours, Mikey,” I said sternly. Mike balked and then pouted. Mike’s hairstyle for this year was carefully gelled-up spikes, and I knew how much time it took to do up and maintain.

“This is serious, Lottie!” he whined. “Who am I supposed to talk to now?” I rolled my eyes, but I knew he had a point. If Mike suddenly told me he was going to be coming into school later, I would be pissed too.

“I’ll still text you, okay? It’ll be just the same.” Mike frowned at me.

“What, like you texted me this morning?” 

“I texted you this morning!” Mike rolled his eyes.

“Just sending smiley faces doesn’t count as texting, Lottie.”

“You sent me a frowny face, how was I supposed to reply to that?!”

“I sent you six frowny faces, the least you could do was send me six smiley ones!”

Our petty argument continued until the teacher came in and shushed us. For the rest of the class Mike expressed his distress by jabbing me in the back with his pencil. Luckily for me, and my back, he seemed to get over it by the time the bell rang. He was happily chattering away while I gathered my books and my bag, and by the time we were out the door the conversation had turned to my sister.

“So, how’s Bella settling into Forks?” At the sound of her name a sneer came to my lips, and before I could wipe it away Mike noticed. He let out a low whistle and raised his eyes.

“What was that look for?” I glared at him.

“Nothing. There was no look.”

“Ooh,” Mike said excitedly. He fumbled with his books to get one hand free and made a clawing motion, growling playfully. I stared at him, jaw dropping open in abject horror. “Cat-fight!”

“Oh my fucking god I’m fucking leaving you.”

“You’re leaving him?” came a perky voice. A smile replaced my disgusted expression as I turned to my boyfriend. “Should I be jealous, babe?” Eric grinned down at me, bending over so I could kiss him on the cheek. Mike gagged loudly in the background, and I did my best to ignore him.

“Hey babe,” I greeted, grabbing some of his books for him. He smiled gratefully. “Did you see Bella?” At the sound of my sister’s name he visibly perked up, grinning like a proud puppy. It was ridiculously endearing, and I simpered while Mike scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah!” he said happily. “I think I made a really great first impression.”

“That’s nice,” I said distractedly. Mike raised his eyebrows at me. When I looked at him questioningly he made another quick clawing motion and I scowled, pretending to shove him.

“Hey,” Eric said, frowning. “Is Bella’s mother really part albino?” I stared at him for a couple of seconds. When I saw how serious he was, I couldn’t restrain the quick snort that escaped my nose. “Wha— hey! Don’t laugh at me!”

“Sorry, Eric,” I said, grinning at the floor as Mike began to snicker. “But I’m pretty sure she was just joking around.” 

“Oh,” Eric said, pouting a little. “She said it so seriously, though!”

“Dude, we need to work on your sarcasm.” Mike laughed.

“Don’t worry about it, Eric,” I said, a bit bitterly. “Everything Bella says sounds the same.” Mike made a quiet little meow, and this time I really did shove him. Eric looked a little confused, but happily laughed at Mike when he nearly fell over

...

Angela was stressed. This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. It also wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for her to be storming towards the cafeteria, one hand wrapped tightly around my wrist, dragging me along behind her as she rambled on about how she had failed the math test.

“Angela,” I said slowly and carefully, shooting an apology over my shoulder to a freshman I nearly bowled over. “You did not fail the math test.” She looked back at me and I balked at the teary glaze to her eyes.

“But we got different answers for number six!” she wailed. 

“Uh, yeah,” I said, dodging a stray elbow. “That means I failed the math test.” We finally managed to enter the cafeteria. She slowed down, letting go of my wrist, and I rubbed it to get the blood pumping again.

“But you’re smart,” she said sadly. I smiled at her, patting her on the shoulder as we walked towards our usual table in the back of the cafeteria.

“Thank you, that’s very sweet,” I said kindly. “But you’re smarter. I— oh.” We both stopped and looked in surprise at the dark-haired girl seated at our table. Bella didn’t look like she was having the greatest time in the world. Whether it was because of the fact half the cafeteria was craning to get a good look at her, or because Jessica was happily chattering away into her ear, she was wearing a distinctly distressed expression. I noted with amusement that Tyler had made his way over to our table. Usually he hung out with his jock friends in the corner, but it turned out today he had just so happened to grace us with his presence.

What a coincidence.

“Charlotte,” Bella said, looking relieved when she saw me. My arrival managed to shut Jessica’s mouth, an impressive feat which I was rather proud of.

“Lottie!” Jessica said, scooting to the side and patting the space between her and Bella. Angela scowled and reluctantly sat next to Tyler.

“You, uh, you two know each other?” Bella said awkwardly. Jessica frowned at her.

“I already said that, like, three times.” Bella looked down at her food and flushed. I bit my lip but decided to take pity on her. If I didn’t I could tell Tyler was going to, and he would be infinitely more smarmy and obnoxious about it.

“Don’t feel too bad, Jess here talks like sixty words a minute.” Jessica’s mouth dropped open in affront.

“That’s only one word a second!” she argued. I raised my eyebrows.

“You know that’s still a lot, right?”

“Speaking of math,” Angela cut in desperately. “You already took Mrs. Wallace’s test, right?” Jessica made an agreeing noise around a mouthful of mac’n’cheese. “What did you get for question six?”

“Eighteen,” she said after swallowing. I rolled my eyes.

“Told you.” Angela had physically straightened up in glee but tried to mask her ecstatic expression when she saw my disgruntled look.

“That’s— oh. Well, Lottie, I’m sure you didn’t, um—” 

“There were sixteen questions and extra credit,” I said, popping open a bag of Fritos. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Who are they?” Bella cut in. I looked at her, and followed her eyes. I could tell Bella had been tuning out of our conversation — not that I could blame her — and it didn’t come as much of a surprise when I saw what she had been focusing in on instead. Even all the way across the family, the Cullens still managed to draw eyes.

“Those are the Cullens,” Tyler said darkly, looking torn between being helpful and his raging envy of the overly-perfect family. 

“That’s Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale,” Jessica cut in. “Their dad is Carlisle Cullen, he’s like the lead doctor here. The one who just left to throw out her food was Alice Cullen.”

“They always waste their food,” Angela said disapprovingly, unwrapping her own tuna fish sandwich with an air of unwavering superiority.

“Yeah!” Tyler said, happy to have anything negative to say about them. I frowned at him, and decided to handle the problem in as delicate a manner as possible.

“Shut the fuck up Tyler, why are you even here?”

“They are... very nice-looking,” Bella stammered, ignoring our squabbling. Jessica tittered in agreement, Angela blushed down at her sandwich, and even Tyler couldn’t keep his eyes from flashing to Rosalie. 

“They’re all together though,” Jessica whispered conspiratorially. “Emmett and Rosalie and Alice and Jasper, I mean. And they live together.” I frowned at her, and she rolled her eyes. “But of course I’m not allowed to say that with our resident Cullen defender here.” Bella looked at me, as if surprised. I suppose I wasn’t the kind of person you would think would go and defend anybody.

“Really?” Bella asked.

“Yeah,” Tyler said before I could answer, and I scowled at him. “Even when she was partnered with Jasper Hale and he totally cold-shouldered her!”

“To be fair,” I said diplomatically, “He probably thought I was trying to hit on him.”

“Yeah, but the same thing happened with you and Rosalie!” Jessica argued.

“Again,” I said, munching on my chips, “She probably thought I was trying to hit on her.” Bella looked at me and I shrugged. “The Cullens are the type of family to make you question your sexuality.” I had certainly spent more than one panicked sleepover trying to coach Jessica into being okay with admiring how unreasonably good Rosalie Hale looked in a skirt and heels.

“Oh,” Bella said, very awkwardly.

“That’s the reason I defend them in the first place,” I explained, crunching loudly. “Dad has a massive man-crush on Carlisle Cullen.” Bella looked more horrified than I’ve ever seen her before. Tyler scoffed at me.

“You’re still on this?”

“I’m just saying!” I argued. “Dad talks about the man way too much to be purely heterosexual!” I frowned sadly down at my Fritos. “It’s too bad he had a wife.”

“Oh my god,” Bella moaned into her hands. “Please… please stop.” 

“Anyway, Dad is always talking about how the Cullens are like saints. I kinda have to defend them. If he ever heard me talking bad about any of them he’d probably ground me or something.” I noticed Bella peeking through her fingers at the table, and I turned to look at them. Edward was staring back at her, his brow furrowed as if in frustration.

“Which one is the boy with the reddish brown hair?” she asked. Jessica scoffed.

“That’s Edward. He’s gorgeous, of course, but don’t waste your time. He doesn’t date. Apparently none of the girls here are good-looking enough for him.” I winced sympathetically. Jessica liked to act like she was all that, but she had insecurities by the bucketload. It had taken her forever to gather up the courage to ask out Edward, and he hadn’t exactly shot her down gently. I scrambled for a way to change the conversation.

“Hey Bella,” I asked, and she looked at me. “You have one Cullen to take with you in the case of a zombie apocalypse. Which one would it be?”

“Real classy, Lottie,” Tyer said, rolling his eyes.

“Well it’s a bit more delicate than fuck, marry, kill,” I shot back.

“That’s because you always kill Edward,” Angela said, poking the end of her sandwich at me. Bella blinked at me in surprise, and I dramatically threw my hands up in the air.

“All I’m saying is there has to be a reason he isn’t dating anyone yet!” I said in exasperation. Bella kept staring at me and I sighed. “Here, I’ll give an example, I would pick Emmett.” I glanced over at the table of Cullens. The boy in question had suddenly stiffened, and I wondered if someone was asking him a question. “He’s the buffest, so he can fight off zombies pretty well and is a good intimidation factor in gang politics. Also, if you need someone to throw at a hoard to buy you time, he’d probably take the longest to eat.” Angela rolled her eyes, and opened her mouth to give a snarky retort, when a loud sound startled her silent.

Practically the whole cafeteria jumped as Emmett threw back his head and roared out a laugh. It was so loud it practically made the floor shake, and everyone turned to stare at him.

“See?” I said a bit shakily. Bella’s eyes were wide. “Intimidation tactic.”

...

Art was my last, and easily my favorite class of the day. Mr. Hancoff was our teacher, and he pretty much just let us do whatever we wanted. He would occasionally sprinkle in an actual assignment, like an acrylic still life or a charcoal sketch, and at the end of the year we would do a whole unit on clay. Overall, it was just awesome to come into the classroom after a mind-numbing day of school to the sharply pleasant smell of paint and glue, the warm air cloudy with eraser dust and pencil shavings.

I also shared my period with two Cullens. The Cullen family, in addition to being ridiculously attractive, were also ridiculously intelligent, so you would expect their schedule to be jam-packed with AP courses. But Alice Cullen was pretty much an artistic genius and Emmett seemed like he just liked to have fun with it, so they had been a pretty constant presence in all of my high school art classes.

I had also never interacted with either of them, which was why it came as such a surprise when Emmett twisted around in his seat when I came into the classroom and gave me a huge grin and a wave.

I stared, a little dumbfounded, but waved back shyly. He beamed, let out another loud laugh that made me jump, and then turned back to his workstation. In contrast to Alice’s workstation, which was carefully arranged with little capsules of paint in rainbow order and pencils spaced equidistant apart, Emmett had paint splattered pretty much everywhere. He had streaks of green up his arm and a large orange handprint on his smock. I looked at the clock and then back at him when I saw only a couple of minutes had passed.

“Cutting it a little close, Swan,” Hancoff sighed. “We’re doing spiritual painting today. We’re going to be using acrylic paint to map out the feeling of our inner essence.” I shrugged and went to grab a canvas and some paint. This was even bullshittier than most of our assignments, but I wasn’t complaining. 

Usually, whenever I went for paint I chose woodsier colors. Browns, greens, blues, even the occasional dash of orange. Mr. Hancoff told us to ‘paint what we see,’ and in Forks all there was to see was lots of trees and lots of rain. I was planning to do a forest or something basic like that, but when I swung open the paint cupboard my eyes were immediately drawn to the tub of red in the upper left.

In the shadows, it looked like a bottle of congealed blood. For some reason, I got the most inexplicable feeling of deja vu, as well as a deep repulsion that curdled my stomach. Like if I looked at that paint for a few seconds longer, I was just gonna hurl.  
Which is why I, naturally, grabbed the paint as soon as I could. And a little thing of black because if there’s anything that goes well with red, it’s black. I got a plastic palette out of the cupboards, an oversized shirt that functioned as a smock from a large smelly bin, and looked around for somewhere to sit.

I had popped into class a couple of seconds before the bell, so almost all of the seats were taken. The only free table was the one Alice and Emmett were sitting at. People tended to avoid the Cullens like they were contagious, which always confused me. I mean, what were they going to catch, natural good looks and remarkable intelligence? Or maybe it was that any normal person paled in comparison. I guess I must have subconsciously adhered to this unspoken rule, because when I sat down at their table, I chose the seat farthest away from the genetically-blessed pair.

Emmett glanced quickly up at me and grinned, his nose crinkling like he was holding back laughter. I wondered what about my face was so funny to him. I mean, I know I wasn’t exactly America’s Next Top Model, but usually people at least had the tact to laugh about people’s looks behind their backs. This was just plain rude.

I resolved to ignore the two for the rest of the period, and set to painting, starting off with a background of black. I was planning on doing some sort of silhouette piece, but in red against black instead of black against white. I thought it would look cool. A little edgy maybe, considering this was supposed to be ‘the essence of our spirit’ or whatever, but I was a junior in high school, so that was hardly unusual. But as soon as I went to make the first crimson stroke, my brush slipped, and I found myself just slathering it on.

For some reason, it was mesmerizing. My eyes went a little out of focus and I fell into this weird dreamlike state. I don’t know how long I spent just slopping red on black, but by the time I had finished the period had ended. Mr. Hancoff wandered over to her table and peered over my shoulder.

“Wow!” he said in amazement. I rubbed my eyes, feeling a little dazed. “That looks terrible!” I glared at him over my shoulder. Then I looked down at my painting and winced. It was as if I was seeing it for the first time, and it looked like I had just poured some paint on a canvas and called it a day. The black acrylic paint Mr. Hancoff had was just a really, really dark green, and where I blended it too far with the red it had turned brown, like oxidized blood. I wasn’t nearly as good with paints as I was with clay, but I was at least in the top five of my class. This looked like I had just shot someone and rolled their corpse over a black canvas for fun.

“It’s… abstract,” I mumbled, but I knew that even easy-going Hancoff couldn’t give me a good grade on this one. And as soon as it came home with a big red ‘F’ stamped on the front, it was going straight in the trash.

“I think it looks nice,” came a soft voice from down the table. I glanced up in surprise. It took me a moment to realize Alice was the one who had spoken. She wasn’t looking at me, too focused on clearing up our workstation. Emmett sat next to her, putting the final touches on his painting. Quite literally, he had bright blue paint on his thumbs and was pressing dots on to the canvas. I snuck a glance at her canvas.

“Thanks. Yours looks… perfect,” I said, not just a little bit bitterly. It really did. Alice had used an array of blues and greens and white to create some sort of swirling kaleidoscope effect. I couldn’t decide whether it looked like the summer sky, or the sea after a storm, or looking up into the rain. Or better yet, a crystal ball. Like the kind they have at one of those hack fortune-teller stalls, and you’re supposed to look into the cloudy glass to see your future. I looked over at Emmett’s painting next to hers, and couldn’t hold back a snort. It looked like the sort of project a five-year old kid would make during recess; he had painted his palms bright neon colors and pressed handprints down onto the white background. I would have felt bad for laughing except that I had seen Emmett when he was actually trying, and he wasn’t half bad. It was overwhelmingly clear he was completely bullshitting.

“It’s abstract,” Emmett said, wiggling his eyebrows at me. I glared at him, feeling both insulted and amused.

“Har har,” I said snidely. “Thanks though, Alice.” She looked up as though startled to hear her name, and smiled at me. It was a ridiculously beautiful smile, and I felt my mouth go dry. It was true Alice wasn’t quite the Vogue magazine kind of alluring Rosalie was, but being this close it was easy to see they were both equally attractive. Alice looked almost otherworldly, like she was some sort of forest nymph or dryad you’d expect to see peering at you from the branches of a tree or the bottom of a lake.  
“Oh!” she said. “You’re welcome. Your name is Charlotte, right?” I looked at her in surprise.

“Yeah,” Emmett cut in. “Charlotte Swan. But everyone calls her Lottie.” My eyes were so wide I felt like they were about to pop out of my head. What the hell? Both Alice and Emmett Cullen were sitting there, smiling and talking. To me! And they knew my name! I felt oddly powerful, like I was some kind of Cullen whisperer. I kind of wanted a witness, but at this point we were the only students left in the classroom, and Hancoff was rinsing off the first round of dirty palettes in the janitor’s closet  
.  
“Lottie? That’s a pretty- oh!” Alice gasped in the middle of her sentence, straightening in her seat. She was staring straight across the room with unwavering intensity, but when I glanced behind me all I saw were cupboards. When I looked back she was beginning to tremble, hands flying forward to the paints she had half put away.

“Uh, Alice?” I said, watching her frantically pop open bottles. She wasn’t going for the blues this time, instead reaching out for browns and blacks. “Are you okay?” One of her hands shot to the side, twitching limply on the table. I thought she must have been having a seizure or something, and I was about to call for help, when Emmett quickly shoved a spare brush in her hand.

And, right before my very eyes, she stuck her brush — directly in the bottle of paint! — and slapped it on to her perfect picture. My eyes bulged. Sure, I was jealous of her artistic skills, but that doesn’t mean I wanted good art to be ruined!

“Holy shit! Alice!” I squeaked, standing up. I was about to reach over the table to stop her, when I was blocked by a burly arm. I don’t know how it happened, but one second Emmett was next to Alice and the next he had come over to stop me from disturbing his sister.

“You need to go away,” Emmett said firmly. His voice was a low growl, and it was absolutely terrifying, but I was a dumbass on the best of days and was thoroughly convinced Alice was going through some sort of manic episode.

“But she’s— she’s ruining it!” I said, peering over one unfairly-sized bicep. Alice’s hands were a blur over her painting. I didn’t even think about how it was possible for her to move that fast until later, I was too busy staring at the shapes she had put down. Somehow, in the ten seconds since she had started, she had already made the perfect silhouette of two people and was beginning to color it in. I watched as she blocked out color: skin as white as paper, dark hair on one, copper on the other, the beginnings of a face— my vision was quickly obscured by a large hand covering my face. I squeaked in utter indignation, and tried to wrestle away his hand with very little success. It was hard, and firm, and most of all it was absolutely frigid. That could not be healthy.

“Oh, shit. Alice, darling? Can you hear me? Oh Jesus, this is so not the time—!”

I put my hands on Emmett’s wrist and yanked, to no avail. He was holding me with a touch that was both very firm and oddly gentle. I wondered how the giant teenager managed to keep his touch that delicate. He had such a strong grip he must have hurt people with it before..?

I had an idea.

“Ow!” I yelped, trying my best to act like I was in pain. I think I kinda pulled it off.“Ow! Help, you’re hurting me!” All of a sudden the hand on my face was gone and Emmett was standing a good three feet away from me, a look of concern plastered on his perfect face. I quickly looked to Alice. She had broken out of her weird painting-trance and was blinking dazedly, looking around as if she had no idea where she was. 

“Emmett..? What—”

“Holy shit,” I gasped, finally getting a good look at what she had painted. “Is that my sister?” It was, there was no mistaking it. Bella Swan, in all her pale-skinned, dark-haired glory, was plastered on the background of swirling blue and green and white. And standing next to her, locked hand-in-hand, was none other than—

“You need to fucking leave, right now.” Emmett was suddenly standing in front of me. He wasn’t as tall as Jasper, but he still towered over me. His face was twisted into a look of utter rage, and with his shoulders hunched up and his muscles tensed, he looked like a massive grizzly bear growling down at me.

“And your brother,” I gasped out. I told you I was a dumbass. “Why the fuck did you paint your brother and my sister holding hands?” Alice looked at me with wide topaz eyes.

“I said GET OUT!” Emmett roared. I was suddenly very, very scared. I had defended the Cullens, sure, but I didn’t know them, and right now Emmett was really looking like he was going to snap my spine like a fucking twig.

I grabbed my bookbag and got out of there as quickly as I could. I nearly knocked over Mr. Hancoff at the door, and ignored his halfhearted attempts at scolding me for running in the halls. Right now I was going to find Bella, get a ride home, and spent the rest of the day pounding out my frustrations on clay.

Fuck my painting. I had more important things to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the next chapter! Thanks all for your wonderful kudos and reviews!


	4. Chapter 3

“But isn’t that just so weird?”

It took Eric a little while to respond through his mouthful of chili fries. We were sitting in Worster’s Pub, one of the few restaurants in Forks. At night it functioned as a bar, where adults could drown out their surban monotony with whiskey and cheap beer, but during the day it was the perfect hangout spot for local teenagers. 

“Babe, that’s so weird,” Eric said earnestly, wiping some chili sauce off his chin. I took a moment to grin in appreciation. That was one of the things I loved about Eric: He was never patronizing. If he seemed interested in what I was saying I knew he was genuine. Eric was also a bit of a gossip, and anything revolving around the Cullens was always a hot topic.

I had just finished telling him about my uncomfortable confrontation with Alice and Emmett the prior Monday. All of our teachers had unanimously decided to band together and give us as much schoolwork as possible, so it had been a whole week before I had the chance to tell anyone about it. Luckily, Eric and I always met at Worster’s every Saturday for date-night. Telling someone about the experience was cathartic. Especially considering Eric was the one I was talking to. He would listen patiently when I spoke, and reacted at all the right moments. I loved my friends, but Tyler and Mike would be too distracted by the football game on the pub’s small television, Jessica would keep cutting me off to gossip, and Angela would be too analytical, interrupting me to tell me that I was overreacting or misunderstanding the situation. 

“Okay, so I believe you and everything,” Eric reached for another fry, “But how do you know it was Bella and Edward? I mean, it was just a drawing. It could have been any two people.” I snorted.

“Have you ever seen Alice’s artwork?” Eric munched, tilting his head in consideration.

“You mean besides the ones that win our school art shows? Not really.”

“When Alice paints it looks like a photograph. She nails down every last detail. It was definitely Edward and Bella.” I took a fry and dabbed a bit of tabasco sauce on the end. Eric had zero spice tolerance so I had to adjust the heat levels outside of our shared fry bowl. “And if it wasn’t them, why would they still be acting so weird?” Ever since Monday, I had been cold-shouldered by Alice and Emmett harder than I’ve ever been in my life. No more inexplicable laughs from Emmett or soft smiles from Alice. And the extra chairs had ‘mysteriously’ disappeared from their table come Tuesday. To them, I was as insignificant as a fly on the wall.

“Yeah…” Eric said, tracing the wood grain. “Does that, uh, mean you’re going to stop defending the Cullens now?” I felt a little surprised.

“I hadn’t thought about it. Is it really that weird?” 

“I mean… a little. The only people who really defend them like that are people who…” He trailed off, wincing, but I could read between the lines.

“Want to get into their pants,” I finished, grimacing a little. Ew. “Wait, Eric, did you think I wanted to fuck the Cullens?”

“What? No!” Eric said hurriedly, flushing as red as a tomato. “It’s just that—”

“It’s weird,” I agreed, nodding. “I don’t know. Dad talks about the Cullens like they spend their free time rescuing puppies and orphans and shit. But I thought Alice and Emmett were supposed to be the nice ones.” I glared down at our plate of chili fries before sighing. “I don’t know. Dad told me to be nice to them, so I guess I kinda felt like I had to.”

“I’ve always thought that was so weird,” Eric said, resting his face on his hand. “You do everything your dad asks you to.” I raised my eyebrows. “I mean, we’re teenagers. We’re supposed to argue with our parents. But I haven’t seen you two fight once. And I’ve known you since the first grade! I mean, we all joke about how we’re so jealous of you and your dad’s relationship, but it’s just strange.” 

I felt my ears turn hot, and for the first time, I really felt like yelling at Eric. I forced myself to take my anger out on my napkin instead, shredding it to bits and letting the pieces fall to the floor. I knew he was just being earnest, but what exactly was I supposed to tell him? That I didn’t want to make my dad mad, because if he didn’t want me before he might not want me now? It wasn’t like Dad and I never got into fights, we argued over chores and my grades and he was pretty freaked when I started dating Eric, but we never got into full-out screaming matches like some of my friends and their parents did. 

“I guess I’m just a doormat,” I said finally, shrugging. Eric snickered.

“Yeah, sure, you’re a doormat. If a doormat opened up into a spike pit.”

“Look, can we just drop it?!” I snapped, and immediately felt bad when I saw Eric’s face. He looked like a kicked puppy. I apologized quietly as we got the check and headed outside.

When we stepped into the parking lot, we both took a moment to take in the cloudy sky and frigid January air. In addition to the massive amounts of schoolwork, the weather had gotten progressively colder over the past week. Every morning the grass was glazed with frost, and it was starting to hail more than rain.

“Jesus, it’s cold,” I mumbled, and tucked my chin into my bright orange scarf. The windbreaker was too light to keep me warm, and I couldn’t find a winter coat in quite the same obnoxious shade, so I settled with the scarf to upkeep tradition. I heard Eric’s teeth chattering, and rolled my eyes when I realized all he was wearing was a hoodie. “Do you want to borrow my coat?” I checked my phone. “My dad is almost here, so it’s not like I’ll be outside for long.”

“No thanks,” Eric snorted. “I’ve survived six months without being shot by Chief Swan, and I’m not going to break that streak for a bit of cold weather.” I punched his arm and he snickered at me before brightening up. “Hey, you know it’s supposed to snow Monday?” 

“Holy shit, really?” I said, perking up. I loved the snow. In Forks it was always wet, perfect for packing and making snowballs and snow forts, and, my personal favorite, snow sculptures. 

“Yeah,” Eric said quietly. He still looked a bit downcast, and I felt like the worst person in the world. Eric was always awful to get into arguments with, because he never got angry. He got sad, which was about a million times worse. I sighed, and stuffed my hands into my coat pockets, startling when they brushed against something cold.

“Oh shit!” I said in realization. Eric looked at me curiously as I fumbled with something in my hands. “I totally forgot to give you this!” I grinned and uncurled my fingers, showing him my gift. It was a little clay heart, pixelated like the ones that showed his health in those RPG games he played. I had to use a box-cutter to make sure the edges were pointy instead of rounded, and there was a little hole in the top so he could string it through a keychain or something. The heart was yellow, his favorite color, with orange shading, which was mine.

“Oh my god! Lottie!” Eric said, taking it gently from my hands. He grinned down at it, and my heart fluttered happily at the genuine happiness on his face. “This looks so cool! You made this?” 

“Yeah, well,” I said, a bit flustered. “It was nothing.” Eric smiled softly at me and slipped the heart into his pocket.

“Hey, Lottie,” he said softly. I looked up at him curiously. And then he was leaning in, his breath warm on my face. I reached up on my tiptoes so that my lips met his. They were lightly chapped, and tasted like chili fries, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable sensation. We had kissed before, sure, we had been dating half a year. But it was always quick pecks, and this occasion felt like it called for something more. Only, I wasn’t exactly sure how to go about that.

Eric seemed to be thinking the same thing, except he couldn’t seem to decide whether to put his hand in my hair, on my face, or on the back of my neck. I rested mine awkwardly on his shoulders. I didn’t think this was what making out felt like. We just kept giving each other light kisses, over and over again. Weren’t you supposed to open your mouth or something? But it was just so awkward. All I could hear was the sound of lips smacking and the uncomfortably loud noise of air whistling out of our noses.

Eric was the first to take a step back. I wondered if I was imagining the look of discomfort on his face. I wondered if he saw mine. I liked having Eric as my boyfriend; it was just like being best friends but we kissed sometimes and when we hung out we called it dating. And I liked the kisses, too, when they were just light pecks. It felt warm and affectionate, like giving each other quick hugs. But this… making out thing, that was completely different. Not to mention sex! The idea of fucking Eric felt weird, it felt like…

… Well, it felt like fucking your best friend.

“Is that, um, is that your dad’s car?” Eric coughed. 

“Well it’s not exactly inconspicuous,” I mumbled. Luckily, the cruiser was just pulling in, so there was no way Dad had seen anything. I gave Eric a tight smile.

“I’ll see you Monday?” I asked. He nodded, and gave Dad a quick wave from where he was glaring at us from the front seat of the car. I rolled my eyes. I knew he was just being dramatic, Dad loved Eric. 

And I loved Eric. These weird hang ups would go away after a while, I was sure of it. It wasn’t like either of us had any experience with relationships. All we had to do was take it slow, and we would both be fine.

...

As it turned out, it did snow Monday, and the collective whole of Forks highschool was ecstatic. I had done all of the silly little superstitions: slept with my pajamas inside out, put a spoon under my pillow, flushed ice cubes down the toilet. I woke up to clear skies, which put me in a nasty mood, but my spirits were lifted when it started snowing halfway through Physics. Mike was buzzing with excitement, and bolted out the door as soon as the bell rang. Eric and I ended up finding him chatting with Bella in the hallways.

Bella had integrated herself nicely into my friend group. Angela loved having someone to talk about books with, Mike was obviously gunning for her to become his girlfriend, and Jessica and Eric were just the kind of people that liked having other people around. It was hard to describe how I felt about the whole thing. I was far less possessive over my friends than my family, and when I thought about Bella as just another friend she became a bit easier to deal with. I would tolerate her throughout the school day, and when she came home I would quietly loathe her behind a thin veneer of good humor. As she grew used to me and the others she began to open up, and I started to learn what she was like behind her clumsiness and awkward mannerisms. She was extremely sarcastic, with a snarky attitude and dry wit that surprised me. It also became very clear exactly what she thought of Forks, and it differed greatly from what she told Dad over the dinner table. 

Mike was absolutely horrified. “You don’t like snow?” Eric and I sniggered to ourselves. It amazed me how their massive differences of opinion didn’t slow his roll. I wondered why he wanted her so badly. He was extroverted, she was introverted. He was a jock, she could probably kill herself playing mini-golf. It was a wonder he didn’t go for someone who shared his interests. We hadn’t had any recent sleepovers to confirm it, but Jessica was eyeing Mike a suspicious amount these days, and she seemed like a perfect fit.

As Mike and Bella went back and forth, I noticed Eric lagging behind, packing a handful of snow. He was giving Mike’s blond spikes an evil look, and I nearly laughed out loud when I realized what he was planning. Mike was going to murder him.

“Haven’t you ever seen snow before?” Mike asked, running a hand through his hair. Was he trying to be suave? Bella didn’t even look like she noticed, she was too busy glaring down the sky.

“Sure I have,” she said. “On TV.” Mike threw his head back, starting to laugh in a way that was both agreeing and charming, when a dripping snowball smacked into the back of his head. For a second he froze in shock, and I burst out laughing at the expression on his face. His eyes were wide, mouth dropped slightly open, and spiky hair sticking out in a way that was distinctively unattractive.

Just like my unfortunate predecessor, my laughter was quickly cut off. Only this time, it was with a handful of frigid slush that splashed right across my face. I gasped at the cold, and the feeling of icy water dripping down my shirt, before snarling at a smug Mike.

“I didn’t throw it, asshole!” I yelled. He blinked in surprise, before whirling around to face Eric. My traitor of a boyfriend had taken advantage of my misfortune to sprint away as quickly as possible, and Mike swore, dipping down to make a quick ball of mush. “Oh no you don’t fucker!” I growled, jumping at him.

I was too slow to grab Mike before he took off, but I was little, and much better at ducking through the crowd of students. We broke out from underneath the covered archways and ran into the slush-covered fields surrounding the school. Eric was lanky, but he wasn’t much of a runner, and Mike quickly caught up to him, rubbing mush into his shaggy black hair. By the time he had pulled away, grinning in victory, I reached the pair.

“Revenge!” I cried, attempting to tackle Mike to the ground. I was so small it only made him stumble, but his foot slid on the slush and we both went down. Eric joined me, face cherry red from the cold, and we both teamed up to splatter Mike as much as possible. That was, until my boyfriend decided to betray me once again, and the two boys pinned me to the ground. I screamed and writhed, trying to escape as they shoved handfuls of icy slush down my shirt.

The two of them stopped when the second period bell sounded. We all glanced around, at the snowy field and covered archways that were now barren of students. Faces were plastered to the windows of the nearest building as the people inside laughed at our misfortune.

“I’m going to fucking murder you,” I promised darkly, and that was enough to get the two boys to let me go.

...

The rest of the day passed in a similar vein. I was scolded by pretty much every teacher I had for dripping all over their floors, and was catching the beginnings of what looked like a bad cold. At least Mike and Eric were apologetic after they saw my puffy eyes and runny nose, but I wasn’t so ready to forgive them.

Mrs. Wallace, who was a hardass bitch on her best of days, wasn’t exactly sympathetic towards me constantly disturbing the class with my sneezing. Angela, who sat next to me, was trying to be commiserating as possible while also keeping a wide distance. She had scooted her desk an extra three feet away, but had also placed one of those little plastic-wrapped packages of tissues on my desk. I was using them as best as I could to muffle my snorts and sniffles, but judging by the expression on Wallace’s face, I wasn’t doing nearly good enough of a job. After my fifth sneeze in a row she finally snapped.

“If you can’t control what comes out of your body, then maybe you should be in the nurse’s office instead of disrupting everyone’s learning experience!” My face flushed as everyone in the class peered over at me— well, flushed more, I was already feeling hot and sweaty. Angela gave me a pitying look, but veered backwards when I stood up. I glared a little at her, but winced when I saw everyone in a three-desk radius was doing basically the same thing. Jesus, just how bad did I look?

“M’ gonna go now,” I mumbled. Mrs. Wallace rolled her eyes at me.

“Yes, you are,” she said snidely, but took a couple of steps away when I passed her. I contemplated turning around and sneezing on her, but decided not to. I was petty, but not that petty. And I couldn’t really afford detention feeling like human garbage.

I swore lowly to myself as I walked down the halls, plucking at the collar of my shirt. I was sweaty as hell, and for some reason boiling hot despite the fact it was still snowing outside. I tried to cheer myself up by reminding myself that I had lunch next period. I could complain about Mike and Eric, and I had packed a massive caprese sandwich that I had been looking forward to all day. Only, the thought of the tomato mozzarella sandwich sent a sharp stab of nausea to my stomach and I retched, ducking into the nearest bathroom.

It was cooler in the bathroom, which was nice. Once I ducked into a stall I made the mistake of resting my cheek against the plastic lid of the toilet skin. It felt soothing against my hot skin, but the fecal smell souring the air quickly reminded me just how germs I was practically smearing on my face. I lifted my chin, and tried to ignore the faint burn of bile against the back of my throat and the suspicious liquid soaking into my jeans where I kneeled. I could hear my heartbeat in my head, as my temples throbbed lightly. Shit. Was I getting a headache, as well?

I was getting the niggling suspicion I didn’t just have a cold. I was going to kill Mike and Eric. Or get Jessica to do it at least.

I didn’t end up throwing up, which was nice. I don’t know why staring down a toilet makes you less likely to vomit. Somehow, sitting there breathing in the smell of stale shit settled my insides until I was able to shakily get to my feet. I wasn’t hot anymore, either. In fact, I was freezing. The sweat that had soaked through my clothing was turning into ice, and I hastily stumbled to the bathroom sinks. There were only two, and one was already occupied, but I ignored the unfortunate person who had to stand next to my wheezing mess and grabbed the available one.

As I twisted the little red faucet lever and waited for the pipes to heat the water, I glanced up at the bathroom mirror and grimaced. Even though I was cold, my face was so red I couldn’t see my freckles. My upper lip was wet with snot and my baby hairs were pasted to my forehead by sweat. I looked like I had run ten miles and taken a jump in a lake to finish off. The water was finally steaming hot, and as soon as I dipped my fingers in it I let out a sigh of relief. The person next to me shuffled and I lazily glanced over in the mirror to see their undoubtedly repulsed expression.

As soon as I saw their face I swore under my breath. And it wasn’t because they were glaring at me like I was a plague rat. It was because Alice fucking Cullen was standing not three feet away from me.

And she didn’t look like she noticed me at all.

“Sunovabitch,” I mumbled, wincing when it came out louder than I expected. There was no way she hadn’t heard me. Still, she stared stoically ahead into the mirror, hands unmoving under the spray of the water from the sink. She was so still, it didn’t even look like she was breathing. I felt a faint twinge of irritation in my gut. Sure, she and Emmett had been ignoring me in class, but this was a little ridiculous. The least she could do was shoot me a glare and leave. The whole acting like a statue thing was just overboard.

I reached for the little soap dispenser hung up between the two sinks and my arm brushed against hers. It was hard as marble, and I wondered just how stiffly she was tensing her muscles. I was one of the few people in the school shorter than Alice but I had spent enough years roughhousing with Mike and Tyler to be able to knock a bitch over. For some reason, her trying so hard to not even let the slightest nudge move her pissed me off more than anything.

“Seriously, Alice?” I finally said, turning to her with a scowl. She didn’t move a muscle, still staring at her reflection with glazed eyes and a slightly parted mouth. I angrily tore a piece of paper towel from the dispenser and wiped my hands with it. “Look, I know I was being nosy, but I was seriously concerned! You looked like you were going through, like, a breakdown or something!” I glared at her. A fly buzzed through the air around her head. “If you’re mad at me, just tell me. The whole ignoring thing is like, fifth-grade shit.” The fly landed on her temple. I raised my eyebrows as it began to crawl down the side of her face, coming dangerously close to her eye. She didn’t even blink, and I wondered what kind of fucked-up powerplay she was trying to pull off. 

The fly paused at the corner of her eye, sat back, and started rubbing its creepy little hands together. I balled my paper towel up and bounced it off the side of Alice’s face. The fly ended up moving, buzzing off somewhere where it could be a creepy little pest in peace. Alice also moved, shuddering and letting out a noise sort of like a dying cat. 

My eyes widened, and it occurred to me that this weird stillness might not be Alice ignoring me. I took a moment to debate the ethical ramifications of chucking a paper towel at someone going through some sort of manic fit.

“Bella,” Alice whispered, and I quickly forgot any guilt I had.

“Wait, what?” I stepped forward. Alice let out another wheezing sound, and I panicked. What were you supposed to do with someone going through a seizure? Airway, breathing, circulation, right?

Wait, no, that was CPR.

Ah, shit, close enough.

“Okay, Alice, everything is going to be fine,” I squeaked out. I was trying to sound calm and self-assured. I think I came across as a thirteen-year old boy going through voice changes for the first time. My congested nose didn’t help. “I’m just going to, um, check your… airway?” What was that again? Okay, skipping to breathing. I rested my hand lightly on her stomach, waiting for it to expand and contract with her breaths. It never did, and I started freaking out for real.

I looked up at Alice’s face, half-expecting to see her eyes rolled back into her head and tongue sticking out. Thankfully, her eyes were locked in that same glazed stare. Her mouth… 

“Holy shit,” I mumbled, stumbling backwards.

Alice’s lips were buzzing. That was the best word I could come up for them, even though they weren’t making any noise. They looked like hummingbird wings, moving so fast all I saw was a vague pinkish blur on her pale face. They were moving so fast it was inhuman, and I started to wonder if my sickness was messing me up more than I thought. 

I fumbled my Nokia out of my pocket and opened up the video camera. I knew it was rude of me, especially when I shoved the camera up to her face so the grainy feed could pick up the details of her mouth. But this whole thing was seriously fucking me up. I needed to check back when I was feeling better, to see if my head really was making up the whole thing. And if it wasn’t… Well, it had to be, there was no way Alice’s lips were actually moving so fast I couldn’t see them. 

Suddenly, Alice’s hand snapped up. I felt it before I saw it, and it felt like a bag of bricks socking me in the stomach at a hundred miles per hour. I flew (fucking flew, I was airborne for this shit) across the bathroom. Luckily, I hit the floor before the wall, and skidded the last couple of feet across slimy bathroom tiles until I was slamming into drywall so hard I was sure I left a dent. My phone went a whole other direction, sliding underneath one of the stalls out of sight. 

“Gack” I said eloquently. I had managed to bring my arms up to shelter my head, but I must have gotten a concussion anyway, because what I was seeing just wasn’t possible. Alice was still standing at the sink. She wasn’t even looking at me, the girl her petite frame had somehow launched across a bathroom. She kept staring resolutely at her reflection, and if I thought her lips were moving fast I had no idea what to say about her arms. At first I thought she didn’t even have arms, like they had suddenly dropped off in the time it took for me to fly through the air across a five-stall bathroom. But then I heard the sound of glass shattering, and for the briefest second her right arm paused, hand shoved straight into the mirror.

Alice hit the mirror so hard bits of glass went everywhere, and I groaned lowly, shuffling up against the wall. My palms ground against the shards and I winced as they split the skin, smearing streaks of blood across the ground. The pounding in my head was receding, back to the steady lull it had been before my impromptu trip, and I briefly comforted myself with the fact I had suffered no head trauma from the incident. My ass was bruised to all hell, though, and I hissed as I scooted it across the floor.

Not two seconds after the mirror broke the door to the bathroom was flying open so hard it nearly burst off the hinges. And then there was Emmett, hunched over and snarling like a feral grizzly bear, alabaster skin glowing in the harsh white light. He looked to Alice, whose frantic movements were starting to slow into something the human eye could actually recognize and then turned to me. His nostrils flared quickly. I must have blacked out for a second because he was suddenly standing just a few feet in front of me, looking far more terrified than a man of his stature ever should.

“Did she bite you?” 

“Did she fucking what?” I tried to back up more, but I was already pressed as far against the wall as I possibly could be. Ew. That couldn’t be sanitary. A thought crossed my mind, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why are you in the girl’s bathroom?”

“Glad to see your priorities are in order!” he snapped at me. He grabbed my hand to pull me off the ground. It was a little rough, but I appreciated the thought.

Then he dropped me right back on my ass.

“Fucking asshole!”

“Oh god,” Emmett whispered. His eyes, the same unsettling amber color as his sister’s, took on a watery sheen. He looked absolutely devastated, and it was enough to distract me from my considerably bruised tailbone. “You— you’re burning up.”

“Emmett?” Came a soft voice from across the classroom. Emmett whimpered and buried his face in his hands. I watched him with wide eyes.

“Alice, you bit her.” he said softly.

“What?” I asked, staring at him like he was crazy.

“What?!” came a considerably more distressed voice, and suddenly Alice was standing beside her brother. The two of them stared down at me like they were picking out flowers for my funeral. 

“Look,” I said, eyeing them carefully, “I don’t think—”

“Oh god,” Alice sobbed, touching a light finger to my hand. “She’s hot.” I raised my eyebrows.

“Uh, thanks. But I really think you’ve made a mistake, I—”

“Charlotte,” Emmett whispered.

“Yes, I—”

“But your friends call you Lottie,” he said. He closed his eyes, like he was steeling himself. Well, this was kind of pissing me off. I don’t know if Alice went around biting people as a habit, but it wouldn’t kill them to actually shut up for a moment and listen to me, would it?

“Look, I know you’re freaked or whatever, but—”

“Well Lottie,” Emmett said, opening his eyes. He was wearing a gentle, almost loving smile, and it threw me for such a loop my words froze on my tongue. “Welcome to the family.”

And then something hit me on the back of my head and I was out for the count.

...

When I next opened my eyes, I wasn’t sure whether or not I was dreaming. The only thing that made me believe I was actually awake was the temperature. Cutting winter wind and sheets of snow sliced into where my bare skin was exposed to the air. I was being held by an ice statue: impossibly hard, impossibly cold, and yet somehow moving, holding me close to their chest. I could hear the wind howl around me, tearing at the ends of my clothes and my hair, and curled up tighter, wondering how I could be moving so incredibly fast. My mind was a dizzy, distant whirl, the back of my head a throbbing, painful mess.

The wind suddenly disappeared as we came to a sudden halt. I opened my eyes against the frosty air. The first thing I saw was snow, falling from the sky in thick clumps. The sky was gray as slate, and I could see the tips of trees jutting at the edges of my vision. 

We were in the middle of a thick forest. The trees were weighed down with white, and icicles stabbed down from their branches. The trunks of the trees looked black against all the snow, the needles of the firs a dark, dark green. The only spot of color I could see was where Alice was standing just to my right. She was wearing a light floral blouse, and I wondered how she could stand there, snow near up to her knees, and not freeze to death.

“We’re almost at the house,” she said. Her pale face looked somber, amber eyes dark with grief. “Carlisle should almost be done hunting. We need his help.”

“We need to talk about what happened.” The chest of the ice statue rumbled, and some distant part of my brain recognized Emmett was holding me. Alice snarled, and whirled against the two of us. She looked like an animal, perfect face twisted into a mask of rage, pupils dilating to fill the gold of her iris.

“We need to get Charlotte to a place where she can transition in peace!” she hissed at us. Emmett growled back, and my whole body vibrated with the force of it. It was almost peaceful, and I closed my eyes.

“Alice, what happened back there, it can’t happen again—”

“I know that!” Alice cried out. She sounded like she was about to cry. “God Emmett, I know that, please—!”

“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” Emmett’s voice dropped into something low and comforting. “I just need to know what you saw. It must have been important, you haven’t had a vision that bad in decades.” Alice sniffled, and buried her face in her hands.

“It was— it was Bella.” The tiny part of my brain that was still coherent latched onto that name. I mumbled to myself, shuffling in Emmett’s iron grip.

“What, again?”

“Yeah, but it was different. Bella was,” her voice dropped to a low whisper, “Bella was one of us.” Emmett swore lowly.

“God. Were she and Edward still..?”

“Yeah,” Alice laughed lightly to herself. Her voice seemed a bit lighter at that. “They were happy. Edward was happy.”

“Well, thank god for that,” Emmett sighed. They were quiet for a few moments. “Hey. Don’t you think it’s a little bit weird?”

“What’s weird?” Alice sounded a bit defensive.

“Well you’ve had all these dreams about this Bella girl, but nothing’s actually happened with her. And then there was this whole thing with Charlotte. I mean, you— we turned her in a school bathroom and you didn’t get anything?”

“What, you think I can control this?” Alice sounded pissed. “You know I don’t have any power over what I see! If I saw what was happening, don’t you think I would have done something to stop it? If I saw—”

“I get it, Alice, I get it!” Emmett said quickly. “God, Alice, I’m not blaming you for anything. I just thought it was funny, that’s all. Probably should have saved the weird questions until things calm down.”

“Yeah,” Alice said snippily. “You probably should have.”

“Yeah. Um. Sorry, just one more question. Have you seen Charlotte in any of your visions?”

“What? Emmett we just went over this, I told you if I knew that this was going to happen—”

“No! No, not that. I meant in your visions of Bella. I mean, they are technically sisters. And she is technically going to be with us now.”

“I… No. No, I actually haven’t. That’s… That is weird.”

“Yeah, it is.” I felt Emmett shift underneath me. “Do you, uh. Do you think we kill her?”

“Well, if you keep on carrying on like this you most certainly will.” A third voice, older, wiser, and edged with anger and impatience. It was a familiar voice, and I opened my eyes to peer at the speaker.

Carlisle Cullen stood in front of us, just as handsome and flawless as the rest of his family. His pale skin and gelled-back blonde hair made the amber of his eyes look shockingly dark. He must have been on lunch-break for work, if the white laboratory coat he was wearing and the silver stethoscope coiled around his neck were anything to go by. It looked like he had been indulging in wine or something similar, because a drop of ruby-red liquid was trailing down his chin from the corner of his mouth.

“Carlisle,” Emmett said finally.

“And just what,” Carlisle said, sounding very, very tired and very, very angry, “Do the two of you think you’re doing?” There was silence. Then,

“I’m so sorry, Carlisle!” Alice burst out. “I don’t even know what happened, I was just having a vision and when I woke up on Charlotte was on the ground—”

“We got her out of there before anyone saw, Carlisle, nobody has any idea what happened—”

“I’m so sorry, please forgive me! I’ll take care of her myself, I’ll leave school with her so you guys can continue staying here—”

“STOP!” Carlisle roared. My eyes fluttered in surprise. I had never heard the gentle doctor so angry. Alice and Emmett immediately shut up. “Stop. Just… Tell me what you think happened.”

“Alice bit her,” Emmett said quickly. “I heard her and Charlotte arguing, and when I came into the bathroom Alice was in the middle of a vision and Charlotte was on the floor.” There was a very deep sigh.

“No, she didn’t.” Silence. Then,

“What?” Alice whispered, sounding in disbelief and incredibly, incredibly hopeful. Emmett was rigid with shock.

“You didn’t bite her,” Carlisle said firmly. “Emmett must have been mistaken.”

“B-But,” Emmett stuttered. He sounded like he was going into shock. “She was burning up when I found her. And I smelled blood—”

“Tell me Emmett,” Carlisle said, sounding exhausted. “Did you ever look for any bite-marks on dear Charlotte?” Emmett became very quiet.

“You… What? You didn’t even find any marks?!” Alice roared.

“But, she was— She was burning up! Alice, you felt it too, she was going through the transition!”

“Charlotte has a fever,” Carlisle said wearily. “More specifically, she has the flu. I’ve been around it enough times to know what it smells like. As for the blood,” I felt my hand being lifted into the air, where my cuts from the broken mirror were seeping drops of sticky red. “She injured herself through different circumstances.”

“Emmett,” Alice said quietly. She sounded torn between fierce anger and fiercer relief. “You asshole.”

“What are we going to do now?” Emmett asked, sounding very small. “What are we supposed to tell the school? What are we supposed to tell Chief Swan? Alice broke a mirror. I knocked her out over the head. How exactly are we supposed to explain that away?”

“We’ll tell them what happened, of course,” Carlisle said calmly. “Dear Charlotte here was battling through a fierce case of the flu. She went to the bathroom to try and recuperate. After she washed her hands she turned around and,” he settled his hand on the back of my head, right where it was throbbing the hardest. I whimpered and cringed away as his icy fingers brushed against the sensitive spot. “She promptly passed out and broke the mirror with the back of her head. Alice here heard all the commotion and promptly rushed her friend over to the hospital where she knew her loving father could solve everything.”

“Solve everything indeed,” Alice said softly. “It always amazes me how levelheaded you can stay in situations like these.”

“I’ve had far too much practice.” Carlisle snorted. “Charlotte does direly need a trip to the hospital, however. Running through the woods in a snowstorm can hardly help a fever, and somehow I don’t think Emmett was his most gentle in… putting our friend to rest.”

“I was panicking!” Emmett protested, tone a bit lighter than before. I felt myself getting passed from one set of frozen arms to another. Carlisle was less burly than his son, but just as strong. He smelled like a hospital, all cleaning solutions and sour medicine, and his stethoscope felt like ice against my cheek. I peered through my eyelids to see the doctor staring down at me, nostrils flaring.

“She has rather serious bruising along her back and rear,” he deducted. “And around her stomach as well. I can smell the blood rushing to the affected areas. Alice must have accidentally hit her while engaged in her vision.”

“Girl probably got too close,” Emmett said darkly. “She’s far too nosy. She deserves a good smack.”

“Being nosy is hardly a good reason to get punched across a bathroom,” Carlisle chided. “And I can’t imagine the broken glass helped much either.” Alice made an apologetic noise. “The flu and head trauma are definitely her most serious injuries. The probabilities of her being concussed are very high. She likely won’t remember anything several hours before and after the incident.”

“And if she does?” Emmett asked.

“Pardon?”

“We were hardly being very inconspicuous. Alice being in her vision and knocking her across the bathroom and all that. What happens if she remembers what happened?”

I heard Carlisle sigh, and I peered up at him through snowflake-dusted lashes. He caught my gaze and smiled gently down at me, tucking a stray curl behind my ear. Seeing him so close, with such a soft expression on his face, brought forth a shard of a memory. It was right when the Cullens had first moved here. One of the newer officers was messing around with a gun and accidentally shot Dad in the leg. Carlisle fixed him right up, leaving Dad with nothing but a scar and slight limp, and he had been invited over for dinner as thanks. He hardly ate any of the meal, but it proclaimed it delicious, and all throughout dinner he had that same soft, gentle, welcoming look.

“Memory is a funny thing,” he said softly, wiping snow off my face with the corner of his face. “With enough effort, they can be easily rewritten. Anything Charlotte does remember from the bathroom can be easily attributed to fever dreams as a result of her sickness. It is likely she will even form very distinct memories of her passing out against the mirror and being rescued by Alice.” Emmett scoffed.

“Humans never fail to surprise me with just how weak they are.”

“You were human not too long ago,” Carlisle chided. “Remember, you are the youngest in our family.” I closed my eyes as he brushed another lock of hair away. “And just minutes before, you believed dear Charlotte’s mortality to be pending.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Emmett mumbled.

“Humanity is a gift,” Carlisle said firmly. “And let us all take a moment to pray that Charlotte will never have the chance to lose it.”


	5. Chapter 4

I was back in the bathroom. I don’t know what I meant by that: back in the bathroom. As if I had been in the same situation before. And I had spent plenty of time in this particular school bathroom, with its peeling drywall and harsh white light and five stalls. But for some reason this felt different, as if I was playing back some sort of distant memory. All crackling static and washed-out sepia tones.

I was standing at one of the two sinks, the one furthest from the door. The water was running, but I wasn’t washing my hands. I was waiting for it to heat up because I was cold, cold, cold. Snow was falling lightly from the white lights. I felt the flakes touch on my hair and shoulders, gathering in a fine layer of powder like dust. I wanted to look and see, but I was too busy staring at my reflection in the broken mirror.

My face stared back in fragments. Snubbed nose, to the right. Wide mouth just below. Freckles, freckles, freckles falling from the lights like snow, gathering in fine powder. Eyes the color of rubies, of apples, of freshly-spilt blood.

Eyes?

I heard someone move next to me. I wanted to look over to see, but I was too busy staring at my splintered reflection. Looking into my eyes, golden-brown like burnt butter. Like they had always been. Like they always would be.

Always always always

“The water’s warm, now” the person beside me said. I listened without thinking, dipping my hands underneath the flow. The person had an old voice, incredibly wise. And deep, so deep I could feel it rumble the floor beneath my feet. There was no disobeying a voice like that.

And the water was warm. And thick. Warm and thick, like syrup left out in the sun. It coated my hands and soaked into the ends of my sleeves. I could smell rust, and it was so cloying, so overpowering it made my head ache. And I wanted to look down at my hands, look down to see what was coming out in globs from the faucet, but my eyes were stuck firmly on the mirror and my hands were frozen still.

“So vain,” the voice chided. A hand like ice gripped my wrist and slowly lifted it in the air. I stared straight ahead, desperately trying to close my eyes as my fingers edged into my line of vision. But I could not move and my hand was lifted ever higher.

When I first saw it I didn’t know what I was looking at. At first I thought I was wearing a plastic glove, like the kind dentists and doctors wear, but a vivid red instead of blue. It was so shiny, so shiny it looked wet, and then drops of crimson began to run down my wrist. Fear jolted in my stomach so hard it brought movement to my limbs, and I cried out in distress, stumbling back.

My gaze fell down to the sink and I sobbed at the sight. Blood, so dark it was almost black, was streaming from the faucet in thick globs. And the white acrylic sink looked like a murder scene. It was just… red. Red was the best word for it, and there was so much of it, everywhere.

I turned to run, but the hand was still firm on my wrist. It twisted me around, until I was bumping into a man’s solid chest. But it wasn’t warm like a man’s, it was cold, even under the thick black cloak he was wearing. The man towered above me, and I tried to look up into his face. But for some reason I couldn’t focus on his features, and staring too long made my head pound with pain. I looked away sharply, and pale skin and dark hair and red eyes danced in my mind.

“Sit,” the man said, still with that unwavering authority. Before I could pull away, there were hands on my waist and I was being lifted into the air. And then carried, struggling, crying, and kicking, towards the bloody sink. “Sit,” he said again, more gently, as he sat me down inside the basin. I sobbed as I felt blood gush against my back and soak into the seat of my pants, wretchedly warm.

Then the hand was on my wrist again, and my cries caught in my throat as my palm was pressed against the man’s lips. I still couldn’t focus on his face, but I felt it against me. Not even his lips were soft, and when his tongue began to lap the blood off my skin, it felt like a chunk of ice.

“Good,” the man said lowly, swallowing a mouthful. He peered up at me, and all I saw were a pair of crimson eyes before the pain became too intense. “So good for me, mia cara.” I shuddered and slumped back. The fear was beginning to slip from my body, as if his words were pulling it from my veins. And I hated it, hated how the purr of his voice was like a sedative. Even the blood was beginning to feel nice, soothingly warm and pooling around me.

I leaned back, eyes slipping closed. But there was no faucet behind me, no wall either, and then I was falling. Falling, falling, falling.

I landed on my back in the snow. The sky was gray, and I could see the branches of trees in the air above me, looking black against all the white. Thick flakes were coming down, and they tangled in my curls and lashes.

“Weak,” a man said. Not the same man as before, although he was there. I couldn’t see him, but I could sense him. Could feel his crimson eyes on me. No, this man’s voice was higher. Haughtier. And more cutting and vicious by half. “Disgusting. Filthy mortal scum.”

I pushed myself up, still panting from the thrill of my fall. I was in a dense, snowy forest. The ground around me was soaked red with blood. And standing just a few feet away, glaring at me with a fury so sharp it cut against my skin, was a man. He had cornsilk hair and a black cloak and scarlet eyes. Just like the man before, who was now standing across the clearing with his back towards us, I couldn’t focus on his face without wincing. But I didn’t need to see his face to feel his hatred and rage and know it was directed at me, still laying prostrate in the snow.

“How is this thing worthy of our time?” the man continued. He paced, back and forth so quickly I could barely see him. “How is it worth not indulging in our thirst? What is it but another vessel from which to feed?” I looked to the first man for help. He did not look back. His interest was gone, died out when my blood was no longer against his tongue.

I tried to get to my feet, but then there was a hand against my shoulder, and I was shoved back into the bloody snow. I gasped in shock at the sight of the angry man’s face not inches from mine. I closed my eyes as agony wracked through my body, so intense I bit my lip near in half. Blood trickled like hot copper into my mouth.

“I could snap your neck without a thought, topolina,” the man said. His voice had changed into something lower, smoother, curling. I trembled as he brushed his fingers over the column of neck before settling it in his grasp, holding it loosely. My pulse thrummed quickly against his thumb. “What could you do to stop me? What would you do?”

I whimpered as he applied just a fraction of pressure. I felt his crimson eyes burn into my lower lip, where red trickled down my chin.

“Would you scream?” And then his lips were on mine. My cry of pain was muffled by his mouth; there was no lust behind the gesture, only painful, pressing need. He growled against my skin as he took my lower lip between his razor teeth and sucked.

I opened my streaming eyes as a shadow fell over the two of us. The first man was back, but not to help. He stood frozen in the snow, transfixed by the sight of my blood on the both of our lips.

“Poor topolina,” the cornsilk man purred against my lips. “Even Brother here wants a taste.” As if caught up in his own passion, his hand began to tighten slowly around my throat. I squeaked in pain, and wriggled, but it was no use. His body was like an iron cage. Black spots began to dance over my eyes as pain slipped to numbness. I had almost become submerged when the angry man was shoved off me, and I panted as cool, fresh air slipped down my throat.

“Brothers,” a third voice chided. This one was high, musical, playful. I did not open my eyes. I knew without doing so all that would greet me would be pain. “So inhospitable! So… indecorous.”

“Brother,” the angry one growled. “I was enjoying that.”

“Oh, I could see that,” the playful one responded. I winced as his thumb brushed over my lip. “Only, our little lady here didn’t seem to feel the same. Did you now, mia tesorina?”

“What does it matter?” he raged back. “She is human. She is mortal. She does not deserve to be held to high standards by beings such as us!”

“You are partly true.” The playful one sighed wistfully. “She is irredeemably mortal. But that is not all that there is to her.”

“Brother,” the first man spoke. His deep voice edged with uncharacteristic impatience. “Explain.”

“Darling here has a gift,” the playful one spoke reverently. He began to dab the blood off my chin with the corner of his sleeve. “And it is a very special thing indeed.”

“Yes, Darling can be of use to us yet.”

...

Something swiped against my lip and I jolted awake at the flash of pain, panting heavily. My dream flashed behind my eyes and I tried desperately to grab at what I remembered before it drifted away. But just like always, the details of my dream seeped through my fingers like water— no. The dream seeped through my fingers like blood, because blood leaves a residue. And the residue was glimpses of crimson eyes and cornsilk hair and a voice that sounded like it was always laughing.

“Are you alright?” someone asked gently. My eyes fluttered open and my heart skipped a beat at the sight of Dr. Cullen peering over me with dark amber eyes. He was holding a bit of tissue over my mouth, and the white cloth was dotted red.

“Wha’ happened,” I mumbled incoherently. I cringed as feeling began to filter back into my body. It started with the pain in my lip, white-hot and flashing, and then continued on. A throbbing at the back of my head, congested nose, stinging at my palms, and a heavy soreness all over my body. Even still, my head was airy with the unmistakable numbness of pain medication. I felt like shit steamrolled by a garbage truck, and wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep.

“You bit your lip in your sleep,” Dr. Cullen explained. His voice was soft, slow, and sweet, and I listened hard to try to ignore my discomfort. “You must have been having dreams.” Suddenly his amber eyes flickered to mine, and I shifted a bit at their sudden intensity. “A nightmare perhaps?”

“Er,” I said, when it looked like he was waiting for an answer. I was a bit frightened by how hard he was staring me down. “I dunno. Was a nightmare. I guess.” Dr. Cullen pressed a little too hard against my lip and I hissed, shrinking back. He apologized lowly.

“What happened?” he said casually. I stared at him, but had to look away when those eyes flickered to me. “In your dream?” he clarified. I frowned. I knew what he was talking about the first time. I was just having trouble with why Carlisle Cullen would ever care in the first place.

“I was, uh… in the bathroom. The school bathroom,” I recalled, squinting my eyes. That was about where it became hazy.

“The school bathroom?” Dr. Cullen asked. He sounded tense, and I wondered why. “Go on. What happened next?”

“I don’t—” I sighed angrily as my head throbbed. “I don’t remember.”

“Ah,” Dr. Cullen said. A bit of tension released from his shoulders. I frowned. That wasn’t quite right. I knew I had gotten more from that dream. Like blood through fingers, right? There was always residue left behind. “Well, that’s quite alright. I always have trouble remembering my dreams myself—”

“Wait,” I said suddenly. Dr. Cullen stopped talking, watching me carefully. “No, I remember. There were people there.”

“People?” Dr. Cullen said pleasantly, but there was a sharp glint to his eyes.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, frowning. I couldn’t recall much about them. They were tall, I remembered. Their skin was very pale. And though I wasn’t exactly sure, I remembered them being, well… beautiful. Pale, tall, and beautiful, very much like our resident doctor and his family. “They kinda looked like you actually.”

“Did they.” he said flatly. I gave him a funny look. He turned around quickly, and I watched him duck behind a pastel curtain. I was laying in a stiff bed, two privacy curtains pulled up on either side. I knew instinctively I was in a hospital from the bright white tiling and the sterile smell.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. I reached up to touch my lip, and hissed when my fingers brushed over the sore skin. It was a marvel I hadn’t woken up when I first bit it. It felt like I had split the skin right in half. Dr. Cullen popped back from behind the curtain.

“Don’t touch that,” He chided, brushing away my fingers. He pressed an ice pack wrapped in cloth into my hand, and then brought it up to my face. “Apply pressure to your lip. The cold should help with the pain.”

“Fanks,” I mumbled against the ice pack. Dr. Cullen leaned against the side of my bed and crossed his arms, looking down at me carefully. I felt a little defensive. Dad and I had invited Carlisle over for dinner before, and he never acted this weird. Maybe he was playing out the watchful caretaker? I felt the need to break the silence. “Um,” I said, bringing the ice pack away from my mouth. He gave me a disapproving look and I grimaced apologetically. “When I asked what happened, I didn’t mean my lip. I don’t really remember much of… anything.” Dr. Cullen brightened.

“That’s good!” he said cheerfully. I stared at him, and he corrected himself. “That’s fine, I mean. Considering your illness and head trauma, loss of memory is a perfectly natural reaction.” I frowned at him.

“Illness?” I asked, snuffling through my congested nose. “Head trauma?” Dr. Cullen smiled down at me.

“Do you remember feeling ill, Miss Swan?” he asked. I scrunched my nose in thought. I remembered the snow fight with Mike and Eric. I remembered being excused to the nurse’s office for sneezing too much. It was what happened after where everything went hazy.

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” I said, worrying at the edge of my hospital-gown. It was paper thin and scratched uncomfortably at my sore body.

“Well, it turns out you, Miss Swan, have a bad case of the flu,” Dr. Cullen said.

“That makes sense, I guess.” I mumbled. “But, uh, what about my head? It really hurts, and not like a headache kind of hurt.”

“That’s where it gets tricky,” Dr. Cullen told me. “Do you remember going into the bathroom?” I frowned. Thinking back. I did sort of remember a bathroom: white lights and slimy tiled floors.

“Uh, yeah, I think so.”

“While you were in the bathroom, you passed out,” Dr. Cullen explained. My eyebrows shot up. Passed out? I had never passed out before. “You end up breaking the mirror with the back of your head.”

“I broke a mirror with my head?” I squeaked. Dr. Cullen nodded patiently. A particularly horrific thought crossed my mind. “Oh my god,” I gasped. “What— What happened after that? Who found me?” I got a particularly terrible vision of a gaggle of freshmen discovering my comatose body. Of me being toted out to an ambulance in front of the staring eyes of the entire school.

“My daughter,” Dr. Cullen said. My eyes snapped to him. “Alice.”

“Alice?” I said in a strangled voice. Alice Cullen had found me? With the way she and Emmett had been acting the past week, I figured she’d just leave me there for someone else to deal with.

“Yes, Alice. She called me as soon as she found you. We managed to get you out of there without much commotion.” I blew out a breath and stared down at where my bandaged hands lay in my lap. My palms were stinging lightly: I must have cut them on the glass from the mirror. The Cullen girl still made me feel uneasy, but I couldn’t help but feel grateful.

“Tell her thanks from me, please,” I said quietly. Dr. Cullen hummed, as if he knew all about my complicated feelings towards his family.

“You can tell her yourself if you’d like,” he offered. “Both she and Emmett like to come volunteer at the hospital. They should both be here.” I cringed a little. Alice and Edward? Talk about a double-whammy. But that reminded me…

“Hey, uh, where’s my dad?” I asked. Dr. Cullen frowned at me.

“What do you mean?” I fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Well, he came to see me right? After I got brought in?” I really needed to see my dad right now. I was tired, sore, hungry, and felt like living hell. I felt like a little girl going through the worst of her withdrawal, a little girl with her first real cold, a little girl who cut her hand on the swiss army knife her dad got her for her birthday. All I wanted to do was crawl into my dad’s warm arms, and cuddle up into his chest and the smell of coffee and gun oil and old spice deodorant.

“Your father is in the hospital,” Dr. Cullen said slowly.

“Well, where is he?” I asked impatiently. “What’s that thing you say? I’m, um, I’m seeing visitors now?”

“Your father can’t see you right now,” he said. I opened my mouth to ask him why not. “He is currently with your sister.” My mouth slowly closed. I felt something like ice in my stomach.

“My sister?” I heard myself asking. I felt numb, like I was observing myself from a distance.

“Yes. Isabella had an… accident.”

“Oh.”

Oh. Well. That was that, wasn’t it? Your fake daughter and your real daughter get into an accident, who do you visit? It was a no-brainer, really. I don’t know what I expected.

I don’t know why I thought things would ever go differently.

“Would you like to go see him?” Dr. Cullen asked. I tried to ignore the way he was looking at me sympathetically, and thought about his question. Yes. Yes, I did want to see him. I would always want to see him, no matter what.

After I told him yes, Dr. Cullen helped me off the bed and walked me to the waiting room with his arms around my shoulders. I felt kind of pathetic for needing the help, but I was feeling awfully lightheaded, and the pain in my head and sorrow in my heart was making it difficult to concentrate. He got me all the way to the door of the waiting room before he stopped and huffed quietly to himself.

“I’m sorry, Charlotte, but I do really need to go check on Mr. Crowley. It seems he’s giving the nurses a bit of trouble.”

“Crowley? Like Tyler Crowley?” I asked, surprised. Dr. Cullen just gave me a patient smile before walking down to the hall towards the emergency room. I briefly wondered how he knew that the nurses were having trouble with Tyler, before shrugging and opening the door to the waiting room. I felt like too much shit to worry about that right now.

“Lottie?” Jessica said from her seat by the door. I stared at her with wide eyes and she stared back. “What are you doing here?”

“Lottie!” Mike cheered from beside her. I looked around the waiting-room and saw Angela looking at me in surprise, Eric smiling with a little shoebox in his lap.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked. I tried to hold back a grin but couldn’t help it before it spread across my face. The cold in my stomach was beginning to melt into something warm, like bits of summer sunshine. I supposed that old saying was right. ‘Friends are the family you choose.’ And these were my friends, and they chose to spend time with me—

“Same thing as you, to see Bella.” Jessica sounded confused. “But why are you wearing a hospital gown? Did something happen?”

I looked at her. I watched her eyes widen at the expression in my face. I didn’t know what it looked like, but the sunshine in my stomach was growing warmer, and then hotter, until it burned like fire. Anger. I was so angry because I understood Dad because Bella was his and he never wanted me but my friends chose me and when they chose me they made a promise—

“Charlotte, stop glaring at Jessica,” Angela said primly. I turned my searing gaze towards her and she flinched back a little but stood firm, picking up a delicate eyebrow. “Why are you so mad, anyway? Because we came to visit Bella instead of you?” I nearly growled out loud.

Angela had always been a nice girl. She was very book smart, but almost as if to make up for it, her emotional intelligence was lacking. She was too clinical, too analytical, too quick to make logic out of emotion. And usually, we forgave her for it, even when we came to her upset and she basically told us to get over it because it was petty. We forgave her for it because she was our friend, and we loved her.

But now my anger was too hot, too much, and it was going through my veins like fire. It felt like when I squashed my clay Bella into a lump, except this time I wanted to get my hands on more than clay. I wanted to punch a wall, and maybe punch a person as well. And right now, overly analytical Angela was looking like a prime target.

“Are you really asking me that?” I snarled. “Are you really asking me if I’m mad that you chose to visit my sister in the hospital instead of me?” Angela shot me a superior look.

“Bella was awake and you were asleep. What did you expect us to do? Just wait around for you?” she asked.

“Yes!” I roared. From behind her, Mike and Jessica were shooting each other wide-eyed looks. I realized from Jessica’s confused expression that they probably didn’t even know I was in the hospital to begin with, and that just made my anger grow. “I’m supposed to be your friend! Not Bella! Me! And when I’m in the hospital, you go and see my bitch of a sister—!”

“Your bitch of a sister?” Angela asked angrily. “We only became friends with Bella because you asked us to! And now you’re just turning around and making it look like we did it on purpose? Just to, what, alienate you?”

“You chose to see her instead of me,” I said lowly. Angela huffed angrily.

“Yes, Charlotte. We did. And you know why? Because you have a fever. And Bella got hit by a car.”

“I— what?” I stammered.

“Yes, Charlotte. She did. But you didn’t think about that, did you? You didn’t even think to ask why your sister was in the hospital before you were accusing us for being selfish. Us!” She laughed derisively, and I felt my blood boil. And then came the final straw.

“God, Charlotte, I knew you were self-centered, but this is just too much.” I snapped.

“You fucking bitch!” I yelled. Angela reeled back, eyes blown wide. Mike’s mouth fell open.

“Lottie,” Eric whispered, speaking for the first time. His eyes darted anxiously, torn between his girlfriend and one of his closest friends. “Please, we’re in the waiting-room—”

“Who the fuck are you to come up to me and spout this fucking bullshit!” I cried out. Years of insecurity twisting into unbridled, uncontrollable rage. “What is wrong with you? I hope you get hit by a car!”

“Lottie!” Eric snapped. He looked furious. I panted for breath, eyes darting between my friends for support. But Mike was still looking at me, open-mouthed, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Jessica’s eyes were shiny, and she was staring at me like I had just killed her cat. Angela’s face was locked in a mask of cold anger.

She didn’t say anything in response. She just turned on her heel and left. And Mike and Jessica, still shooting me anxious looks, followed her. Until only Eric was left, glaring at me with anger I had never seen on his face before.

“Eric,” I pleaded. My anger had drained away. All I felt was sad, and cold, and lonely. “Eric, please. You heard what she was saying—”

“Yes,” Eric said stiffly. “I did. And it was rude. But it was right.” I felt my eyes glaze with tears. He inhaled deeply through his nose, closed his eyes, and shoved the small box in his arms into mine. I stared down at it as he spoke. “This was for you.”

“Eric,” I said softly. He gave me a sad look, and then turned around, and walked out the door. I watched him go, rubbing away the tears before they could fall. I looked down at the box in my hands. It wasn’t wrapped, just a black shoebox, but there was a heart stenciled in on the front in silver sharpie. I peered under the lid and closed my eyes, letting out a shuddering breath.

A silver chain necklace, with a small spider charm for Charlotte’s Web. And next to it, a tiny pot of playdough.

“Shit,” I mumbled, angrily scrubbing at my eyes when they refused to stop prickling with tears. I glared at the moisture beading on my fingertips, and fidgeted when I felt a prickling of a different kind. I glanced up, not really sure what I was expecting— but it certainly wasn’t the curious gazes of Alice and Emmett Cullen.

They were both standing in the doorway that led to the patient rooms. Alice was holding a box of diapers and baby powder, her face carefully constructed into a mask of perfect blankness. Emmett had a massive bag of trash over his shoulder and a douchey little grin on his face. Judging by Alice’s stare and Emmett’s look of wry amusement, they had seen everything that had gone down.

I felt a spark of anger at their expressions, but I mostly felt numb inside. All of my irritation had drained again, let loose on people who didn’t deserve it.

Might as well get it out of the way now, I guess.

“Alice,” I said through gritted teeth. She raised her chin and studied me carefully. “I want to— to—” She narrows her eyes at me and looks… wary? Yes, wary, like she was quietly steeling herself for some wild accusation.

“Take your time,” Emmett says, grinning, and holy shit I should have saved up my anger for him. At least Angela meant well. God damn. But there was something defensive beneath his tone, like he was using his humour as a careful mask.

“I wanted to thank you.” I finally spat out. Both Cullen siblings looked surprised. “Dr. Cullen, um, told me that you found me passed out. And got me out of school with making it a big deal. So… thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Alice said, eyeing me carefully.

“Yeah, it was no problem, kid,” Emmett says, face a little softer. Kid? What the hell, he couldn’t have been a year older than me. But more than that—

“What do you mean?” I asked. He raised his eyebrows.

“Uh, no problem for saving you? You know, the thing you just thanked us for?” I twitched a little in irritation.

“Yeah, I know. I was thanking Alice. Doctor Cullen told me she found me in the girl’s bathroom.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why were you there?”

“Uh…”

“Wait, what exactly happened?” I asked, beginning to feel a bit panicked. If Emmett had seen me passed out there was no telling who else had. I would much rather be lugged unconscious in front of the school than the Cullen family.

“I’m very sorry Charlotte, but the maternity ward needs our help as soon as possible,” Alice said sweetly. She took Emmett by the hand and tugged him through the door. “I’m sure you understand.”

I didn’t understand, not really. Forks was so small there couldn’t have been more than two mothers in the ward. But I was worn out, and upset, and beginning to get a bit shaky on my legs. The pain in the back of my head had only grown worse due to my little screaming match.

Right now, I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. And this time, hopefully, without dreams.

…

“I’m so sorry I didn’t come see you before, Lottie,” my dad said. I hummed in acknowledgement and snuggled closer into his side. He was wearing his battered old uniform, and he must have gotten fast food in the car because he smelled like grease and fries. I reminded myself to ask him for food later, so far all the hospital had given me was a watery plate of scrambled eggs.

“S’okay,” I said, fiddling with the zipper on his chest pocket.

“I was waiting on you to wake up, but Bella had her accident and you were still asleep. Carlisle didn’t think you’d wake up until later.”

“I don’t blame you, Dad,” I mumbled. “Really, didn’t even cross my mind.”

“Did you see your friends? They were in the waiting-room to see Bella, I figured they’d stop by to see you after.’’

“Must’ve just missed them.”

“Hm,” my dad said. His thumb stroked my neck lightly, and for some reason, I got the strangest urge to duck away. I stood firm, swallowing down the unnecessary panic as he looped his finger under the silver chain that hung there. “What’s this?” he asked, drawing the spider charm out from my hospital gown.

“Oh that?” I said lightly, fiddling with one of the spider’s legs. The charm was plastic— not a lot of good jewelry a teenager’s money could buy— but it was well made. It was a light silvery color that matched the chain, with beady red eyes. It was probably supposed to have been some sort of gothy Halloween charm, but we both knew what it would mean to me.

“Did that boy— Wait, what was his name?” I smirked a little to myself. Dad had arranged more playdates with Eric than I could count. “Eric Yorker?”

“Yorkie, Dad.”

“Yeah, well,” Dad said. “Did he give you that?” I smiled softly and a bit sadly at the charm, tilting it so it glinted in the harsh hospital light.

“Yeah. He did.” Dad was staring at me, confused and a little horrified at the melancholy expression on my face.

“Oh. Well.” He hesitated. “You know I give that Eric boy a lot of guff,” he trailed off. I looked at him, a bit amused and curious to see where he was going. “But he’s a good kid. Really. And I’m glad that the two of you are together.”

“Yeah,” I sighed, looking over to the small pot of playdough on the hospital bedside table. “Yeah, he’s the best.” Dad was still peering at me with an adorable look of confused concern, and I gave him a big smile to soothe his worries.

“Right,” he said gruffly, satisfied he had done his fatherly duty in relieving my emotional duress. He nodded once, twice, and then his walkie talkie buzzed at his side and he let out a low groan.

“You can take it, Dad, I don’t mind,” I said softly. He shot me a tight smile and then walked quickly out into the hallway. As soon as he was gone I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. The pain medicine Dr. Cullen had given me was beginning to fade away, and the throbbing at the back of my head was growing more and more intense.

I knew I should probably go to sleep, as I wouldn’t be getting any more pain-relievers until the morning. The nurses were concerned that due to my past with drugs I would be more susceptible to addiction. I personally thought it was the opposite; I was much better at indulging in and then going without coffee and sugar then my dad was. In any case, my body was filled with that horrible jittery energy that came with laying in a hospital bed all day.

I was too sore and lightheaded to go on a walk, but my eyes kept catching on that small pot of playdough. Not for the first time that day, I felt a deep pang of sadness and appreciation for Eric, who probably knew that I’d be sitting around bored with nothing to do and a longing to squish my hands around something.

I shuffled backwards so my back was against the wall and twisted around to grab the playdough, letting out a groan of pain as my stomach throbbed with the effort. As soon as I had grabbed the container I peered down the front of my hospital robe. My eyes widened at what I saw: My entire stomach was a mess of dark purple and blue. Jesus. How did I get that from falling against a mirror?

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I popped off the lid and plopped the cylinder of playdough into my hands. I had a feeling that Eric meant to grab me pink, as some sort of romantic gesture, but instead the dough was a strange salmon color. It was still sweet, and would certainly do the job, but as I started to knead my palms twinged lightly with pain due to the cuts that still lingered.

Still, I persisted, trying to go as slow as possible to diminish the pain. The first thing I did was make a clumsy cartoon heart. After I accidentally squashed it, I tried to make an anatomical human heart. That was even worse, and it ended up looking like a sloppy cut of salmon. I quickly gave up on sculpting and just squished it over and over again, feeling it ooze through my fingers as the heat of my hands softened it further.

I could physically feel the pain leak back into my body as the medication went through my system. It focused about where’d you expect: on the back of my head and the various flu-related ailments I was suffering. But a surprising amount was focused on the bruising on my stomach and my back. I had thought that the soreness in my body was because of the flu, but the discomfort was quickly graduating into an all-out throbbing pain that made it difficult to sit up in bed. It definitely hurt too much to be just from passing out in the bathroom.

As I leaned against the wall, squishing playdough in my fingers and wincing every so often at the pain in my back, stomach, and hands, one thought crossed my mind.

What happened in the bathroom?

And what happened next is hard for me to describe.

That very question became like hot air, ballooning inside my body until it pressed up against every crevice, replacing every thought in my mind. A strange warmness overtook my body, taking away every pain better than the best medication ever could. But it didn’t just take away my discomfort. It took away everything I was feeling in general: my hands against the playdough, the wall against my back, the scratchy sheets and gown against my skin. The smell of cleaning solution melted away into nothing, the taste of watery scrambled eggs drained out of my mouth, and my ears became full of white noise, like an airplane engine or waves against the beach. And the white wall of the hospital I was staring at became whiter, and whiter still, until I was floating aimlessly in some vast endless void.

I don’t know how long I was like that. But eventually, a slight twinge of pain began to reel me back from the void like a fishing-line. I grew closer and closer, until I was just at the edge. The feelings didn’t come back slowly, then, they came all at once. The sharp smell of detergent, the taste of nasty hospital food, and the throbbing discomfort all over my body all slammed into my body at once. And strangely enough, it was all focused on the palms of my hands.

“Ah shit!” I hissed, dropping the lump of playdough on to the bed and staring at my hands. They were burning like I had lit them on fire, and I could see a dark red leaking through the white bandages wrapped around them. I must have torn open the cuts on them somehow— but I couldn’t see how I had gone so long without noticing. It felt like I had squirted lemon juice directly into the open wounds.

I looked down, almost accusingly, at the lump of playdough on my bed— only it wasn’t a lump anymore. It was more of a brick shape, and the light salmon color was smeared red from where my blood had soaked through the bandages. When I picked it up to look closer I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I knew I was a good sculptor. A great one even, for my age. I had been doing it all my life, and had won more than a few art shows with my pieces. But playdough was almost impossible to work with. It was far too soft, and even just holding it would ruin what you had worked on. The best you could do with it would be to to make rough shapes as a reference for more in-depth sculpts using professional materials.

That was why I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. In my hands was a great— no, a perfect depiction of my Nokia cellphone. And it didn’t just look like a professional sculpt. It looked realistic, amazingly realistic, like I had just spray painted my own phone an ugly salmon. I had never created something so realistic using professional clay. And I didn’t even think it was possible to make something close to this level using playdough.

“Lottie?” someone said. My hands instinctively tightened around the playdough, and I let out a huff of both physical and emotional pain as my perfect Nokia depiction was squashed into nothing. “Are you okay?”

I looked up to see my dad staring at me with a look of concern from the other end of the hospital room. I shot him a quick smile and hid my hands underneath my sheets before he could see the blood.

“Um, I’m fine.” I said absentmindedly, mind still focused on the suspiciously blood-stained lump of playdough sitting between my legs. “How was your call?”

“S’alright,” he said, shrugging quickly. “Just a moron with a DUI down the highway. Got pulled over without much fuss, has his license suspended.” He scowled darkly, and I was surprised at the uncharacteristic look of anger on his face. “Whole bunch of bastards screwing up with their cars today.”

“Wow Dad,” I laughed, a bit surprised. “Tell it like it is, huh? What exactly happened with Bella, anyway?” Dad sighed, and rubbed at his temples.

“Bella was in the parking-lot this morning,” he said gruffly. “That Crowley boy skidded on some ice. Nearly ran her over.”

“Holy shit,” I said involuntarily. “And she’s okay?”

“Yeah,” Dad said, sighing. “Luckily, Edward Cullen was there. He managed to get her out of the way before she was hit.” I stared at him. Edward Cullen, huh? Looks like the Cullen family were out being a bunch of heroes this week, weren’t they?

I felt a weird sort of itching in my brain, and my eyes instinctively snapped to the lump of playdough. The sight of the Nokia cellphone— both the real one and the salmon one— flashed behind my eyelids.

“You good, Lottie?” Dad asked. I looked at him, fingers twitching with a strange urge. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“Um, yeah,” I heard myself saying. “I think I left my phone at school. Do you think you could go get it?” Dad winced.

“Ah, I’m sorry Lottie,” he said. “I can’t go barging into your high school just to get you your phone back. You shouldn’t be here too much longer. You can get it after, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said distantly, looking back down to the blob of playdough. The itching in my brain had spread through my body. I felt a strange heat running through my veins, and a prickling running along my spine. I felt like when I was still five years old, and was going through withdrawal symptoms. Like I was a man dying of thirst and my water was just out of grasp.

For some reason, I needed my cell phone. Needed it like lungs need air and a starving man needs food.

I needed to get that cellphone, or else I thought I just might die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that chapter this story is all caught up! From now on my updates will be slower, 1-2 times a week with around 5000-8000 word chapters. Thanks so much for all the kudos and reviews, and I'll see you in the next chapter!
> 
> Translations:  
> Mia cara ~ my dear  
> Topolina ~ little mouse  
> Mia tesorina ~ my darling


	6. Interlude

If Carlisle Cullen could have chosen any of his pseudo children to have knocked a teenage girl out in a bathroom, mistakenly assumed her to be transitioning into a vampire, and kidnapped her from a high school, it would have been Emmett and Alice.

Rosalie probably would have been the worst scenario. She was the type of person who would insult the rest of their family to their faces, but would also kill herself several times over just to keep them safe. She was, in her very nature, a deeply possessive and protective person. And if the narcissistic Rosalie Hale valued her family over her life, the life of a mortal was as meaningful as an ant’s. The moment she realized Charlotte Swan was privy to one of Alice’s visions the girl would have arrived on their front porch in a body bag.

Jasper, while not as vicious as Rosalie in resolve, was double so in his vampiric nature. As soon as Charlotte cut her hands on the broken mirror the girl would have been done for. And, instead of passing relatively painlessly due to a swiftly broken neck as she would have in Rosalie’s capable hands, she would suffer a slow and agonizing death, likely with less attached limbs by the end than the average Forks High student.

Edward… truthfully, Carlisle didn’t know how Edward would react to such a situation. Edward’s view on the average human’s life could be easily summarized in one word: apathetic. And Carlisle truly didn’t blame him. His pseudo son’s gift could just as easily be called a curse. When you were constantly bombarded by the innermost thoughts of the entire world, one had to learn to either sink or swim. If Edward had not adopted a rather blasé outlook to his mortal brethren’s existence, he would have been overwhelmed long ago. In fact, before Isabella Swan, Carlisle had no doubt Edward wouldn’t have hesitated to kill Charlotte.

But just because Edward could find such precious value in one human life, just because the human whose survival they were currently debating was his hypothetical mate’s sister, didn’t mean it was better to leave the girl alive than dead.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Alive or dead. Alive or dead.

In a usual, yet unusual turn of his events, his family’s opinion was split straight down the middle.

  
Per usual, his lovely Esmé and Alice were siding with the girl’s survival. Per usual, Rosalie was firm in her belief that no human was worth the threat to their family. But Jasper, who usually backed Alice no matter the argument, believed that Charlotte was better off dead than alive. It had caused a rift between the pair, temporary, of course, as all arguments between them were. But Jasper knew that if their secret got out, the blame would fall on Alice’s shoulders, and he just couldn’t take that risk. And Emmett, who usually supported Rosalie in almost everything, favored Charlotte’s survival. That was the greatest shock of all. Carlisle supposed that even with his derision towards the girl, Emmett saw the similarities between the two. They were kindred spirits, both brash and loud and boisterous. And her little quips about their family were certainly more favorable than those of the rest of Forks. No less disrespectful, but flavored more with humor than innuendo and contempt.

That left Edward, who was currently preoccupied with Isabella Swan, and Carlisle himself.

Logically, it was a no brainer. Any other vampire coven, even a vegetarian one, would choose to dispose of the girl as quickly as possible. Yes, there would be a murder on their conscience. But if their secret got out not only would the entire coven die, but the human as well, and likely in a significantly more painful way than if they were just taken care of in the first place.

  
Carlisle believed himself to be a good man. When Rosalie became a vampire, she became impossibly beautiful. When Emmett became a vampire, he became impossibly strong. For Carlisle, his natural compassion elevated to such extents that he could resist the pull of human blood. His moral compass was unmatchable, at least in his family. So what was he supposed to do in this situation? It was like the classic trolley question, only it was whether to hit one person with one hundred percent certainty, or to hit the same person and his own family as soon as they opened their mouth.

Everything favored the girl’s disposal. If he was being perfectly honest, Carlisle knew he would have already voted Charlotte’s death if it weren’t for Charlie Swan.

Carlisle appreciated Charlie. He wouldn’t call him a friend, because he couldn’t afford to form emotional connections with anyone outside of his family. But if he had to name one person in Forks to be his friend, it would be Charlie.

Charlie was the sort of ridiculously self-sacrificial person that would put anyone’s health and happiness over his own. Carlisle had heard all the gossip about how his ex-wife left with his biological daughter because he kept prioritizing his duty to the town over his personal life. A cop and a good man? That was already a historical rarity. But Charlie was noble, incredibly so, with a compassion that rivaled Carlisle’s and a work-ethic that was frankly unhealthy and a daughter that he loved more than anything else in the world.

And therein lay the problem. They could justify taking a life all they wanted, but at the end of the day, people cared about her. Charlotte Swan was a person, and not the average one at that.

Carlisle took a long sip of his coffee because there was a gaggle of nurses watching him from across the staff break room and he needed to keep up appearances. He hid his wince at the bitter taste, tilted his head ever so slightly, and listened to the sound of the air-conditioning and the wail of a baby from the maternity ward and the soft crying of Charlotte Molly Swan in her hospital bed.

Carlisle had met Charlotte before her hospital visit and had heard of her long before that. She was one of the most vital bits of gossip Forks had. She was adopted by Charlie’s ex-wife from a junky mother. She was abandoned alongside her father with severe psychological trauma and withdrawal that nearly killed her. Despite her past she wasn’t ostracized for her background; in fact, she felt like the living embodiment of a town like Forks. The sort of rough-and-tumble girl you would expect to live amongst the trees and rain and greenery. No, she and Charlie were mostly paid no attention to until someone new moved in and people needed something to talk about it.

‘See!’ The people of Forks seemed to say, pointing out the small girl and shouting. ‘We’re interesting too!’

When Charlie got himself shot in the leg and invited Carlisle over for dinner as thanks for the patch job, Carlisle both knew nothing and exactly what to expect from the young girl. Her appearance fit her background: She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, with a diminutive frame and hollow cheeks. But it was clear she had flourished and thrived since her sickly beginnings. Her dark honey eyes were large and bright in her gaunt face, and though her body was devoid of curves she was knotted with wiry muscle.

She was a fierce-looking sort of girl, her skin tanned and freckled even under the perpetually overcast skies of Forks, her hair an unruly mass of blonde curls. She reminded Carlisle of a dandelion, pushing its way out of the cracks and rubble to turn its yellow face up to the sun.

But dandelions were also weeds. Dandelions spread their roots and choked and suffocated and cut off the growth of other plants. And Carlisle would not let his family’s growth get cut off by a teenage girl with mommy issues and a traumatic past.

But first, he needed to guarantee she was even a threat in the first place.

“Father?” Carlisle heard a smooth voice say, and he turned around to face his eldest son. Edward stared back, reddish hair glinting bronze under the white light. The nurses tittered at his appearance, greedy eyes taking in the handsome doctor and his son.  
Carlisle kept his face carefully blank, but Edward couldn’t restrain a wince as their lecherous thoughts stabbed like needles into his head.

Carlisle had overheard Edward’s fleeting conversation with his mate, and could tell from the rigid line to his shoulders and the anxious flash of his eyes the boy was worked up over the interaction. He was no doubt fighting the inevitable pull to Isabella and had jumped at the chance to be helpful as a distraction.

“I did not,” Edward growled, amber eyes darkening. Carlisle smiled placidly.

“Of course you didn’t,” he soothed. “Have you heard anything from her?” Edward shuffled back and forth.

“Nothing yet,” he admitted. “She was talking with her dad. Felt guilty about a fight she got into with her friends.” Carlisle hummed, nodding to himself.

Carlisle didn’t usually like using Edward’s gift for his own gain. Edward didn’t like it either. The only times he told the rest of his family what other people were thinking was when he needed to warn about boys trying to peep in on Alice and Rosalie or girls trying to jump on Jasper and Emmett outside the locker rooms. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Have you talked to Alice about her visions lately?” Carlisle asked smoothly. Edward growled at him. Carlisle raised a chiding eyebrow until his son bent his head and mumbled out an apology.

“I told you, I don’t want to talk about Bella—”

“Oh, it’s Bella now, is it?” Carlisle asked innocently. Edward glared at him, and barely restrained another growl. “But no, I wasn’t talking about Miss Swan. Or, at least, that particular Miss Swan.” Edward’s shoulders relaxed a bit.

“No, no visions of Charlotte. At least, that she’s told me.”

“And of the Volturi?” At the mention of the name Edward tensed right back up, a murderous expression briefly twisting his handsome face. Carlisle waited patiently for him to speak, and resolutely ignored the flutter of guilt in his stomach at his personal lack of adverse reaction.

“No, no visions of the Volturi,” Edward finally spat out. Carlisle nodded briskly.

“Well, that’s that, then. And now that I have finished my coffee,” Carlisle swiftly upended his mug over a potted plant before anyone could notice, “I really should be getting back to work. I would recommend you do the same.” And, after clapping his pseudo son on the back and shooting a charming smile at the giggling nurses, he took a sharp turn out of the staff room and marched down the hall to the patient rooms.

Carlisle kept his mind busy with thoughts of chest colds and headaches and sinus infections until he was far enough away that his thoughts would be less blaringly obvious and more something Edward would have to try and pick out. And, knowing that his pseudo son would never peer in on his thoughts if he could help it, Carlisle finally let his thoughts fall to the Volturi.

Carlisle’s entire family, including his lovely Esmé, held the greatest distaste for the elite coven and their three powerful leaders. And even though his brief stay with them should have ensured a greater repulsion than all of them combined, Carlisle just couldn’t summon the same feeling of loathing.

Oh, he knew they weren’t good people. He had experienced first-hand the atrocities they committed, even if it was for the sake of ‘the law.’ And the kings were the vilest of all. Marcus, cast into an unreachable state of apathy due to the loss of his wife Didyme, watched and permitted the actions of the other two kings with the greatest disinterest. Watched with eyes that had seen the hearts of countless beating for the last time in his iron grip, hands that had burned villages and slaughtered children folded carefully over his lap. Caius, who loathed Carlisle especially and always had, was the perfect representation of wrath. His temper was perpetually foul, and couldn’t even be soothed by his wife and brothers. He was one of the fiercest warriors the world had ever seen, and took pleasure in the crunch of bone and sinew in his hands and the cut of a blade into the soft skin of a human or his nails into the diamond skin of a vampire.

But while Marcus was a mask of grief, and Caius a mask of rage, Aro was a different monster entirely.

Aro was glee. Glee in it’s entirety, sharp laughter and playful cooing and red eyes that never stopped watching. While Caius sought pleasure in flesh between his fingers, Aro found joy in crushing every part of a person. He played with hearts, souls, and feelings like piano wire. He built people up only to tear them down, played them against each other in a never ending game of chess, turned them to stone to keep as trophies only to burn them to ash as soon as he got bored.

Aro was the worst of all, and yet he was also the one who held a piece of Carlisle’s heart. He had held other parts of Carlisle as well, in those long nights and days he spent in bed with Aro and his wife, Sulpicia. Living out pleasures he had never thought imaginable, sinning as one only could with the most gleeful sinner there ever was.

Carlisle was not in love with Aro. He may have been in the past, but now the thought was laughable. Aro had still held strings of his heart when Carlisle fled to a more humane way of life, but as soon as he saw Esmé, saw his true mate for the first time, pure, selfless love and adoration crashed over him. It severed those strings and left him free from the dark man’s greedy hands. But Aro still held the pieces he left behind, just as one leaves the tiniest bit of their heart with their first love. And no matter what the Volturi did, Carlisle would always remain the slightest bit soft to the leader and his two brothers.

That was part of the reason he was so scared of Charlotte giving up their secret. Not because the Volturi would kill them, because Carlisle knew if he ever happened to pass it would more than likely be at the Volturi’s hands. But because he might die at the hands of the one who had once cupped his heart between them.

In fact, it was a certainty. Carlisle knew Aro would ensure that if he was to be killed it would be with those glazed, playful red eyes, watching with the same light curiosity he had when he had first taken him to bed.

And while it was his family’s safety that concerned him first, and his own that made his thoughts wander while he was at work, it was the memory of those eyes that haunted when he hunted alone at night and felt the press of the shadows all around him.

...

Edward Cullen had only been watching Charlotte Swan for about a week, and he was already quite sure he didn’t like her. That in itself wasn’t exactly rare, he disliked most people outside his family, and Rosalie and Emmett pissed him off most days as well. Most of the humans he encountered were vapid and uninteresting, and he held a deep loathing for certain individuals who had personally wronged him or his siblings. Bella Swan was one example of a human he hated: she was far too nosy and snarky for him to even handle being in the same proximity as the girl.

Which was funny, because the main reason Edward disliked Charlotte was because of her views on Bella Swan.

But he did not like her. She was interesting, sure, and intelligent, and could carry a conversation well, and was far more beautiful than any human had a right to be— but he did not like her. And any fleetings feelings of endearment were purely due to how tasty her blood smelled. That was all.

A stray thought wound out of Charlotte’s brain and into his own. It carried a sentiment of resentment to the dark-haired girl and a mental image of her squishing a clay version of her sister in her hands. Edward restrained a growl and imagined him squishing Charlotte’s real head. It involved lots of blood all over the white walls and floor of the hospital, and he quickly shoved back his angry feelings. He didn’t want to overwork the nurses, even if they could be incredibly shallow.

And the reason he felt angry was not because he cared about Bella Swan. It was merely because the idea of hating one’s sibling was distasteful. That was all.

Christ, he was glad he was the one who could read minds instead of Alice.

From her spot in the hospital bed, Charlotte whimpered and tossed about. She didn’t have her covers pulled up, but she was sweating like a pig and had soaked through both her sheets and her hospital gown. Edward wrinkled his nose as her smell accosted him. She didn’t smell bad, exactly, although she certainly wasn’t as delectable as Bella. Bella smelled warm, like a fireplace and the pages of a book and a sweet hot drink he yearned to put to his mouth and drink. Charlotte had a more natural aroma of coffee and cloves and fresh mountain air and the earth after rain.

No, Edward vastly favored Bella.

In the way she smelled. Not in any other way, because he did not like her.

  
Charlotte let out another restrained sob and Edward frowned at her from his position in the corner of her room. It was night time, or rather very early morning, but Charlotte had not yet fallen asleep. In fact, she had gotten very little sleep over the past five days, which would have concerned Edward if he was not too busy being distasteful over her existence. The fact that he still didn’t know whether or not she knew his family’s secret didn’t help his frustration.

Normally, after a couple days of her not thinking about the fact she knew vampires existed, Edward would have decided her head trauma had wiped away Alice knocking her out in a bathroom and all would be well. But he couldn’t do that.

Because not only had Charlotte not thought about the Cullens in the past five days, she hadn’t thought about almost anything. Except for her damn phone. Her brain would go off on tangents, as human brains were wont to do, such as when she was just imagining crushing her sister’s head or when she was thinking of her father. But after every couple of seconds, that singular thought would reel her back in like a fishing line, and she would resume being transfixed in a way that Edward thought could only be unhealthy.

In fact, he knew it was unhealthy. Edward had seen— or well, heard— that obsessive fixation before. He had heard it in the minds of druggies scrambling in alleyways for their fix. He had seen it in nicotine addicts waiting impatiently to take a break from what they were doing to smoke. He had seen it in the mind of Jasper when he was first transitioning into their vegan lifestyle and all he could think about was the warm sweet nectar of human blood.

He had never seen it revolve around a battered old cell phone before. Even when she was asleep, she dreamed of the damn thing.

And when Charlotte’s straying thoughts gave him context to the situation, he became even more concerned.

What disturbed him, as well as the rest of his family, was the possibility that Charlotte might have a gift. Gifts in vampires weren’t uncommon. Three out of seven members of their family had a power, after all, and Carlisle’s resistance to human blood was so remarkable it would be ignorant not to count it as well. And while gifts in humans were even more rare, they could be explained under very particular circumstances. Such as the case with his Bella.

Bella. Not his Bella. Bella did not belong to him, and he did not want her to, because he did not even like her in the first place.

Anyway, once Edward figured out that not-his Bella could block him from reading her mind, he went to Carlisle to answer his questions. From there, not only did he get a debriefing about mates that he was very uncomfortable with (Bella was not his mate, he refused) he also got an explanation for just why Bella could pull a shield over her thoughts. And possibly why Charlotte could be so utterly fixated on her phone.

From what Carlisle told him, the concept of a vampire mate was fate tying two or more people together who were supposedly more compatible than anyone else on the planet. And even before the people met, a mating bond was formed between them. The strength of the mating bond depended on the number and power of participants in question: the effects on the mates ranged from absolutely nothing to disorienting hallucinations accordingly. It became even stranger when one of the participants was human. If the human was destined to have a gift once they became a vampire, it was almost as if fate recognized where they would end up and gave them a more diminutive version of that power.

The mating bond explained why Jasper Whitlock, who was born before his mate, developed emotional manipulation as soon as he became a vampire but Mary Alice Brandon had visions of the future that sent her to a mental hospital when she was only a child. The mating bond explained why Bella was able to shield her thoughts from Edward (but she must have been mated to a different vampire, because it certainly wasn’t him) and would likely grow into a more intense form of shielding if she ever transitioned. And the mating bond could, theoretically, explain how Charlotte was able to immaculately sculpt her cell phone before becoming utterly and increasingly obsessed with it over the next five days.

But who would Charlotte be mated to? Carlisle was mated to Esmé. Alice was mated to Jasper. Rosalie and Emmett weren’t mated to each other, but they were so madly in love if any mates did come along they would be swiftly turned down. Edward… wasn’t mated to Bella, but if he had the choice between the two Swan siblings he would choose Bella any day.

Was that too harsh?

No, not really. Charlotte wasn’t a bad person, but by god was she a mess-and-a-half. And that was even without the psychotic breakdown she was having over her missing phone.

Before he had started listening in on her every thought, Edward didn’t have much of an opinion about Charlotte Swan. He respected her father, as all the Cullens did, but the girl herself just didn’t hold his interest. She had certain appealing qualities, such as the fact that she carried so much life in her tiny body, and her loud laugh and bright smile. If he had to compare her to anyone in the family it would be Emmett, and despite their massive differences in stature they both carried themselves with the same straight shoulders and wide, swinging gate. But Charlotte had a crude sense of humor, and an insensitive way of speaking, and the few harried thoughts he caught from her were always full of anger.

It wasn’t until he started listening in on her on purpose that he fully understood how much anger there actually was. Anger and insecurity, that was Charlotte Swan in a nutshell.

If all Edward had to go off was her bright little face, all large eyes and wide smiles, he never would have guessed it. She would never be the sort of girl he would expect to wear a mask, but she did, and she wore it with the sort of skill one could only perfect after years of use. But inside her mind it was a wild twist of rage she constantly repressed due to her overwhelming insecurity of disappointing her father. An unhealthy amount of her thoughts revolved around her father, and letting him down, and thinking he didn’t love her. Which was ridiculous, of course, the man bragged about his Lottie an embarrassing amount.

But still, there it was: insecurity over her father, her friends, her boyfriend. Anger over her sister, school bullies, the Cullens. A startling lack of self-preservation, as evidenced by the fact she openly provoked Emmett when he was glaring her down. All in all, it all tangled up into a twisted mass of chaos that hurt Edward’s brain to listen to and made him want to escape into the forest and chomp on a bunny to calm him down.

Still, as bad as her day-to-day thoughts were, her blank fixation on her cell phone was even worse. Edward could picture the thing in his mind with vividity that disturbed him: the smears of grease on the screen, the dust under the keys, the chip in the side of the casing. If someone put Charlotte’s phone down in a pile of phones of the exact same model, he could pick it out in seconds, no question. Hell, he could do it even if he didn’t have his vampiric powers of observation.

And that was with going to school and frequent breaks to snack on the wildlife. Edward didn’t like Charlotte, but he sure felt sorry for her state of mind.

From what Edward could tell, the fixation started off innocuously enough. The first day, after her little playdough fiasco, the phone was on her mind like a television special or a muffin to look forward to after work. In Edward’s case, it would be something like a mountain lion, but eighty seven years of vampirism hadn’t erased from his mind the comfort of a good pastry.

The second day was worse; like looking forward to a muffin when one hasn’t eaten the entire day. The third day was even more obsessive: a smoker searching for his cigs or a stoner for his pot. The fourth day encroached on heroin levels of addiction, and Charlotte’s body began to show physical reactions to her fixation. The nurses were understandably confused; Charlotte’s flu had receded around the second day and she had mostly recovered from her mild concussion at that point.

As the fifth day neared, a lovely Saturday that was just as rainy as any other Saturday in Forks, Charlotte’s symptoms had blown up into fierce sweating, rapid pupil dilation, uncontrollable shivers, and at its worse, full-on body spasms. Those had started just around midnight, and luckily they only occurred every couple of minutes or so. Her thoughts were even worse. Edward felt like he was having some sort of televised advertisement for Nokia screamed at him 24/7.

After Charlotte went through her fifth body spasm in one hour, Edward decided it was time to leave. Entering and exiting the room was a little awkward; Edward had to squeeze himself through the tiny half-opened window and jump down two stories to the parking lot. But time was of the essence, and Edward figured he’d better tell his family the new developments as soon as possible.

After all, they didn’t need to worry about killing Charlotte if she ended up killing herself.

...

Angela was not used to being the bigger person. When she got into arguments, they never ended up with her admitting she was wrong. She was always right. Even when she was wrong, she was right. Perhaps it was the lack of proper parental instruction that gave her this unique personality trait, because mommy and daddy cared more about her being in the top of her classes and always having the right answer instead of learning how to apologize. Perhaps it was the tutors she would go to after school instead of having playdates, who drank too much coffee and got shouty when she didn’t do her homework right. Probably it was her older brother by twelve years, who treated her with the same condescending attitude because he resented her for soaking up all the parental attention.

Point was, when Angela got into arguments, she never apologized. Her parents were busy people and would forget about it the next day. Her younger twin brothers, Joshua and Isaac, were hardly inclined to say sorry to her either. Although she rarely got into arguments with her friends, they were usually resolved when the friend in question apologized and Angela accepted it.

Her friends knew this. Lottie especially knew this, considering she was the person Angela argued with the most. So why hadn’t Lottie responded to her half-condescending half-worried texts yet?

Angela had harbored a slight resentment for Charlotte Swan since the first grade when Lottie had snagged Eric out from right beneath her nose. She was still good friends with him, but not best friends like she used to be. Angela and Eric’s parents had known each other, and the two had played together since they were in diapers. They were often mistaken for being twins, both with big dark eyes and straight black hair and mild temperaments. Perhaps that was why Eric gravitated to Charlotte instead. Opposites attract after all, and once she got over her childhood trauma Lottie was loud, bold, and could beat up anyone who made fun of Eric’s acne.

Don’t get her wrong, Angela didn’t hate Charlotte. She even liked her. They certainly made quite a pair, one girl under five feet, the other above six, and who else was going to push over boys who mocked Angela’s height? But Lottie’s best friend (now boyfriend) was Eric, and her second-best friend had always been Jessica. Angela just didn’t mesh as well with Lottie as the others did.

Hence the whole arguing with Charlotte thing.

Hence the whole Charlotte always apologizing thing.

Hence the reason Angela had been sitting in the hospital parking lot since 5:30 AM with a cold cup of coffee cradled between her legs because visiting hours opened at six and she was too anxious to sleep because Charlotte hadn’t been responding to any of her texts.

Winter was waning in Forks, and combined with the perpetually overcast skies, Angela was left sitting in a dark car in a dark lot. She was absentmindedly playing snake on her cell phone while she waited for visiting hours to open, but it couldn’t keep her eyes from flicking to the yellow lights streaming from the hospital windows. Every so often she could see the shadow of a nurse passing by, perhaps even the mysterious Dr. Cullen himself. She didn’t see Lottie, which wasn’t surprising, because there was no reason for a patient to be walking around at 5:30 in the morning in the first place. But some part of Angela really wished she did, just so she could see that the stubborn girl was happy and healthy and she could get rid of the awful guilt that had been weighing on her since she had checked in on the Swan residence the other day.

That Friday after school, Angela had dropped by Lottie’s house with the excuse of studying with Bella. It wasn’t just an excuse, she really needed to study and she did want to spend time with Bella. Angela adored Isabella Swan, she was book-smart and sarcastic and clicked together with her much better than she ever had with Jessica and Charlotte. It was part of the reason she had defended her actions so staunchly in the waiting room. But that aside, her studying meetup wasn’t the primary purpose of her visit.

Angela had intended to find Lottie sulking around somewhere in the house and give her a proper scolding for not responding to any of their texts while she was out sick. Eric had gone to see her a couple of times and declared her ‘too sick’ for visitors, but even an invalid could pick up a phone for a couple minutes. Jessica was noticeably more subdued without someone to prattle on with, Mike’s blatant flirtation with Bella had half the heart it did before, and even Tyler seemed restless without someone to argue with. All in all, Angela was ready to give Charlotte the verbal thrashing of her life, and was so confused when she arrived at an empty house that even Bella noticed.

After trying to nonchalantly ask why her supposedly sick sister wasn’t in the house, Bella, just as confused, informed her Lottie was still in the hospital.

“What do you mean she’s still in the hospital?” Angela had asked. “Didn’t she just have, like, the flu or something?” Bella had watched her carefully before responding.

“Um, yeah, she did. But she also, um, passed out against a mirror.” Angela had stared at her.

“She did what?” she had asked in a voice that was decidedly not squeaky, because Angela Weber’s voice did not get squeaky when she realized she was wrong. Another note, Angela Weber was never wrong. Just because Lottie passed out did not mean she had been injured.

“She passed out. In the bathroom. And got, um, a concussion?”

“A concussion,” Angela not-squeaked.

“Yeah. It wasn’t supposed to be too bad, but she’s been acting kind of weird the last couple of days so they’re keeping her there in case she got some extra head trauma they don’t know about. Or something.” Bella narrowed her eyes a bit. She was more confused than accusatory, but Angela felt accused anyway. “I thought you guys knew that? Dad says he’s seen Eric come visit a couple of times.”

Angela really wished Eric had been a bit more specific about his visits to Charlotte. She also wished that this horrible, nagging guilt would leave her stomach.

Before, Angela could justify getting mad at Charlotte a hundred percent. Bella had nearly gotten squashed by a car, and there was no reason for Lottie to be getting all territorial when all she had was the flu, especially considering they were going to see her next. But if you put in the fact that Charlotte had the flu and head trauma, and was probably not in the best headspace in general…

Well. Angela wasn’t saying she was wrong. But maybe she was a little less right than usual.

The little snake on Angela’s phone accidentally bit its tail instead of the pixel it was aiming for. Angela sighed and checked the time. 6:03 AM. Letting out a short huff of hair, she sipped her cold coffee, crinkled her nose, and stepped outside her car, nearly walking into one Edward Cullen as she did so.

“Er,” Angela said, caught off guard. She was very sure he hadn’t been there a second ago. Nonetheless, the number one bachelor of Forks High was staring at her with wide eyes like he was just as surprised as she was. “Hi.” There was a second of silence.

“Hey,” he said, in a voice that was somehow smooth and gravelly. It was sort of incredibly attractive, and Angela was a bit rueful that the Cullens didn’t speak more often in class if that was what they all sounded like. Edward stared at her for a bit more, the hints of a smirk tugging at his lips, before nodding quickly and pacing off in the parking lot. Angela stared at his back. She assumed he was volunteering at the hospital like some of the other Cullen kids did, but she didn’t see his signature shiny Volvo anywhere.

Weird.

The lady at the front desk was still setting up her desk when Angela walked in. Her eyes were bleary, but she still managed to shoot her a classic customer-service smile. Her front tooth was smudged with a bit of lipstick but Angela spotted a hand mirror among the items strewn amongst her desk and figured it was more tactful to wait for her to figure it out herself.

“Ma’am,” she said politely. She peered at the nametag. “Miss Lewis?” She had a Lewis in her grade. Was probably an aunt or a mom, or something.

“Miss Weber,” Miss Lewis said. Angela smiled. Definitely a mom then, only they could know all the kids in Forks. “I assume you’re here for visitation?”

“Uh, yes. Do you know Charlotte Swan’s room number?” Angela asked, looking around the waiting room. She bit her lip as the not so pleasant memories of the prior week surged forth.

“Charlotte Swan,” Miss Lewis recited carefully, typing the name into her computer. “Gotten a lot of people for her lately. She’s been getting visits from her father every day, and then some from her boyfriend too.” She looked up, face carefully blank but eyes glinting with the chance of a gossip. “Eric Yorker, right? Or… perhaps not her boyfriend?”

“Nope, that’s her boyfriend,” Angela said firmly. Miss Lewis’s customer-service smile fell just a fraction. Jesus. How desperate was this woman? You would think working with Carlisle Cullen would get you all the hot gossip you would ever need. Emphasis on hot. Miss Lewis resumed clicking.

“Room twelve, just that way.” Angela thanked the lady and started walking down the long hallway she had pointed her down, counting door numbers as she went. She was starting to wish she had brought her cold coffee in, if just for the sake of having something to do to prevent her slowly mounting anxiety.

What exactly was she supposed to say to Lottie, anyway? Whenever Charlotte apologized to her it was with an easy smile and careful eyes, gauging exactly what to say to make Angela laugh and forget about the whole ordeal. Angela wasn’t good at making people laugh. Angela wasn’t good at talking in the first place.

Door twelve was just up some stairs, the first room on the second floor and across from the bathroom. Angela stood facing it for a long time, worrying her bottom lip until it started to puff up. She was beginning to realize just how bad of an idea this was, starting off with the fact it was highly unlikely Charlotte was even awake in the first place, and being woken up would hardly make her more amenable to anything she was saying. She was about to turn around and walk back to the parking lot when she noticed that the door was open.

Not by a lot, just an inch.

But open nonetheless.

“Lottie?” Angela said quietly, wary of waking any of the other patients. “Lottie? Are you, um, are you in there? Your door’s unlocked.” She reached up to rap lightly at the door with her knuckles, and with a creaking whine it swung outward into the room. The small room. The dark room.

The empty room.

“Charlotte?” Angela whispered, stepping quietly inside. Her eyes swept across the small space, from the half-opened window letting in crisp late winter air to the glowing lights of the machines she didn’t know the name of. She took a step closer, and looked at the small cot. The covers were scrunched at the foot of the bed and the pillow was tossed onto the floor. The mattress looked wet, and even from a few feet away Angela could smell the unmistakable odor of B.O.

Somewhere behind Angela a door opened. She didn’t even had time to turn before she felt a heavy weight on her back and was sent slamming into the floor.

Angela had always thought she would be a good person to have with you in a crisis. She figured she would stay level headed and calm, keep her thoughts in order so she could approach the situation with the best head possible.

Angela’s first thought when she was tackled inside of Fork’s Hospital’s twelfth room was: ‘Oh my god! I’m getting mugged in a hospital!’ Her second thought was: ‘This would be amazing for my college experiences essay.’ Her third thought, when her assailant flipped her over on her back and sat on top of her, was: ‘Oh my god! I’m getting mugged in a hospital by Charlotte Swan!’

Needless to say, Angela Weber was disappointed in herself. Needless to say, Angela Weber was also sort of terrified as well.

Lottie looked absolutely nothing like herself. On a normal day, she was about as intimidating as a puppy. Now, she looked like some sort of feral, drooling, mangy dog. For starters, she was actually drooling. Or maybe it was the profuse amount of sweat that had turned her skin shiny and plastered down her curls and paper hospital gown. Her skin was so pale her freckles stood out like splatters of ink on paper, her eyes were so wide she could see the whites all around, and she was snarling down at Angela’s face like a rabid rottweiler. Charlotte was over a foot shorter than Angela, and probably some twenty pounds lighter, but with her hovering over her like this, face twisted into deranged anger and surprisingly muscular arms flexing and twitching right by her eyes, Angela couldn’t help but admit there might be more to the girl winning playground fights with bullies than pure dumb luck.

“I’m sorry!” Angela gasped. Charlotte let out an animalistic snarl in response. A bit of sweat dripped onto Angela’s face. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said you were self-centered! Please let go of me!” Lottie growled again and spoke in a voice that was far too deep for such a tiny body.

“Listen to me,” she said lowly. Angela nodded frantically.

“Yep! Listening! I’m listening!”

“You are going to help me.”

“Yep! Yep, totally. Totally!”

Lottie stared at Angela. Angela stared back.

“Uh. Help with what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the next one! This chapter was a hard one to write. Hope you guys like the different perspectives! Thanks to everyone who has kudos'd and commented, and remember to stay safe!


	7. Chapter 7

It wasn’t really like waking up from a deep sleep. More like waking up from a vivid dream, if anything. The kind of dream where you don’t know you’re asleep until you’re blinking up into the darkness of your room. Or even like being in sleep paralysis, and slowly feeling movement drain into your body.

Whatever the case, by the time my shattered thoughts finally pieced together into full consciousness, I found myself sitting in the front seat of Angela’s teal blue Hummer, watching gray drops of rain streak down the front of the windshield.

Angela was in the driver’s seat, knuckles white from how tightly she was holding onto the wheel as she steered us down the highway. She looked even paler than she usually did, and far less composed. Her dark hair was a messy knot at the back of her head, she was wearing pajamas, and her glasses were nearly slipping off the bridge of her nose. She had a styrofoam cup of coffee pressed tightly between her thighs, and I could see the drink tremble from how hard she was shaking.

I didn’t know if she was shaking because it was too cold in the car or for another reason entirely. It was certainly pretty chilly, even as the heating vented stale gusts of warm air up into our faces. Sweat plastered my naked back to the faux-leather upholstery of the car, and when I leaned forward it peeled off with a loud sticking sound. I was in a hospital gown. Why was I in a hospital gown?

“Why am I in a hospital gown?” I asked Angela in utter bewilderment. At the sound of my voice she let out a loud shriek and jolted in her seat. Her thighs slammed together and the styrofoam cup indented and sprayed coffee all over the interior of the car.

“Charlotte!” Angela gasped. Her hands startled on the wheel and the car swerved dangerously.

“Jesus, Angie!” I yelped as she pulled us back into a straight line. The last thing the both of us needed was a trip to the ER. The ER… the hospital. Memories flashed like strobe lights in the back of my mind: Being checked over by Carlisle Cullen, arguing with Angela, snuggling into my dad, visits from Eric and a spider necklace. My hand went up to my neck, relieved to feel the comforting weight of the charm against my collarbone.

Angela cursed under her breath as cold coffee soaked into the crotch of her flannel pants. I watched in bewilderment. Angela never cursed.

“Did you kidnap me from the hospital?” I asked suddenly. It was a silly thought, but Angie was acting weird and I couldn’t really think of another reason I would be in a hospital gown with my bare ass pressed into the pleather seats of her dad’s car.

“Did I what?!” She hissed, whirling on me like a wild animal. For a second her face was twisted with anger but as soon as her dark eyes met mine they froze with another emotion entirely. She suddenly grew very pale and very silent, and turned her head to stare out at the stretch of road ahead. I sat there quietly and thought about how that other emotion looked a little too much like fear.

Which was ridiculous, of course. Angela Weber wasn’t afraid of anything except for her parents and bad grades. And even if she was, she certainly wouldn’t be afraid of me.

Because Angela had decided to commit herself to being about as engaging as a brick wall, I decided to spend my time going over the litany of injuries I remembered acquiring from my little stunt in the school bathroom. My sickness seemed to have gone down, except for the profuse sweating, which was nice. I didn’t have a headache anymore either, and the back of my head only hurt when I brushed my fingers over it. Even then, it was only a light twinge. The cuts on my hands had healed into thin red lines that would probably fade to white scars in a couple of weeks, and when I peered down the front of my robe to check my bruising I saw it had lightened to a runny yellow-green like mouldy egg yolk. The only injuries I had that I didn’t remember getting were the shallow scrapes along my shins. They weren’t deep but they were fresh, and blood was beginning to bead up along the edges like crimson pearls.

“Hey,” I said to Angela. She didn’t turn her head but her eyes flickered over to look at me. I wiggled my legs at her. “What’d I get these from?”

“You jumped out the window,” she said, returning her gaze to the highway. I looked at her with wide eyes, but she didn’t explain any further.

“Wait, what?” I remembered the small half-opened window in my hospital room. I didn’t think anybody could fit through that, much less survive the fall. “From the second floor?”

“What?” Angela said, the anxiety in her voice colored with light irritation. “No, the first floor.” I furrowed my brows.

“My room wasn’t on the first floor.”

“Yeah, I know,” Angela sighed. “You had to sneak downstairs. It was part of the whole breaking out of the hospital thing.”

“Breaking out of the hospital thing?” I asked, mind whirling. “Isn’t that illegal? Wait, you helped me. That’s illegal. That can like, go on your college report thing.”

“I know!” Angela yelled. I looked at her, a little scared to see her eyes growing shiny with tears. “I know that! I wouldn’t have done anything if you hadn’t jumped me!”

“Jumped you?” This was a lot of new information. “Wait, like sexy-jumped or—”

“No! Not sexy-jumped! Like murder-jumped!”

“Murder-jumped.” I leaned back into the chair, wincing as I felt the cool pleather press against my bare back. Angela was beginning to sniffle and I looked resolutely away from her for privacy, focusing on her instead on the windshield wipers that scattered raindrops in a fine silver spray. Angela didn’t like people seeing her cry. In fact, the last time I had seen her cry was in the third grade when she broke her thumb, and she nearly decked me when she saw me watching her.

“You— you really don’t remember?” Angela said in a small voice. It sounded almost broken, and I suddenly felt very, very bad for involving my friend in whatever this mess was. I resolved to buy her a coffee from Forks’s shitty diner as soon as everything settled down.

“Nope.” I sighed, closing my eyes and leaning my head back against the seat.

“You think you have, like, head trauma or something?”

“Maybe.” I frowned to myself. “My head feels kinda funny. Like, airy, or something.”

“Yeah, I think you’re high. On pain medicine. Laughing gas. Whatever it’s called. You’re, um, really calm for just randomly waking up in a car.”

“Yeah,” I sighed, opening my eyes and looking out the window. We were almost at the end of the highway, the section of Forks that had all the little mom-and-pops and bistros and school buildings. I watched the cheery little red-bricked elementary school slide past in a spray of silver rain. “Where are we going anyway?”

“You, um, wanted us to go to the high school.” I scrunched my nose.

“I did?”

“Well, not you you, like, rabid dog you.” I looked at her with wide eyes.

“Rabid dog? What, was I drooling? Foaming at the mouth?”

“Uh, yeah. A little bit.” I made a noise of dissent and wiggled in my chair. Angela let out a last sniffle and wiped the water from her eyes. She tightened her hands around the steering wheel, soggy pants squishing as she shifted in place. I shivered as a drop of icy sweat slid down the small of my back, leaning forward and venting the hot air up into my face.

I watched the collection of buildings that made up our high school approach from the corner of my eye. There were a couple of cars in the parking lot, all clustered in front of our gymnasium for some sort of sports game or science fair. It made hypothetically sneaking in far easier than anticipated, the school always left some of the surrounding buildings unlocked so participants could use the bathroom.

“Does this mean we can go back to the hospital?” Angela said hopefully. I gave her a weird look.

“Uh, yeah, I don’t see why not. I mean, I must have been having some weird amnesiac breakdown or something.” Angela let out an audible sigh of relief and focused her eyes on the upcoming U-turn. “Why did I even want to go to the high school, anyway?”

“Oh? Uh,” she mumbled, eyes flashing almost anxiously to the high school as we passed by the drive-in. “You just wanted to get your phone, or something.”

I jolted in my seat, ramrod-straight. A flurry of memories burst in my mind like fireworks, and seared their afterimages into my brain just like the colorful explosives. A full week of laying in my bed, tossing and turning, forcing smiles whenever my friends and father and occasionally sister came to visit. A full week of sweating and twitching and crying as the image of my Nokia burnt itself into my retinas.

“Turn back,” I said lowly. Angela shot me an incredulous look.

“What?”

“Go back to the high school.” She let out a shrill laugh.

“Like hell, Lottie! I am not getting held back from Upenn just because my friend can’t go a couple of days without her cell phone.” She made for the U-turn and I stiffened in my seat. My stomach grew very cold and I felt my veins pulse with heat. At the back of my jaw, I could feel my teeth start to ache.

“You will go back right now or you will face the consequences,” I growled. I don’t remember choosing to speak the words, but they came out anyway, harsher and darker than I thought my body was capable of making. Angela turned to snap at me but took one look at my face and blanched white. I don’t know what my expression was, but it was enough for her to pull the brakes. We skidded for a bit, the tires screeching and spraying a fine mist all around us. Luckily, there were no other cars on the highway, and she was able to back up far enough to pull into Forks High.

Angela refused to look at me, but from what I could tell from her profile she was scared shitless. Her hands were trembling from where they clenched on tightly to the wheel. I felt guilty as hell, but I couldn’t apologize. In fact, I couldn’t move at all. I sat frozen in my seat, arms twitching and eyes glued to the approaching building.

I took it back. When this was all over, I was getting her a coffee and a pastry. Hopefully some shitty decaf and a greasy croissant could make up for making the two of us into juvenile delinquents.

…

It didn’t occur to me that I was pretty much naked until the two of us had gotten out of the car and the wind was spraying icy rain against my bare back. I eyed the cluster of cars carefully as Angela and I shuffled past them— the last thing I needed to finish off this god awful week was to flash a group of soccer moms my ass. The mothers in Forks were like elephants: they never forgot a slight. Or, in their case, the chance for potential gossip.

By the time we made it to one of the buildings, however, only flashing my butt was a pipedream. The rain had weighed my hospital gown down until it was near-transparent and pasted to my body like a second skin. Angela kept her eyes glued safely ahead as we finally pried open the door and slipped inside.

“Jesus,” I hissed under my breath. The air conditioning was on full crank, and I could nearly feel the water on my skin turning into ice. “It’s barely spring. Who the hell decided AC was a good idea?”

“Mm,” Angela said, staring resolutely at the white brick as I shook off my curls.

“Mm,” I responded eloquently. “Alright. There’s like, one lost-and-found per building, right? I’ll go check the one in the back and you see if you can see my phone through the classroom doors.” The teachers often confiscated items like phones from class and kept them as war trophies on their desks until the students came to claim them. I didn’t remember having my phone taken before I went to the bathroom, but illness and head trauma weren’t too great for recollection.

Each of Fork High’s six small buildings had one lost-and-found located near the back exit, usually in the form of a laundry basket on a stool. But kids generally didn’t look for things they misplaced, and when something made its way into the dreaded basket, it was lost to the sands of time. When I made my way to the back of building one, I decided that nobody had touched the thing since September if the smell it was emitting was anything to go by.

The laundry basket of doom, upon further exploration, held an eclectic collection of items, ranging anywhere from winter hats to water bottles, smelly lunch boxes to even smellier sweaters, all marinating in the unmistakable odor of BO and food left out to sit. I couldn’t find my phone but I did manage to recover a letterman jacket. It was for our school’s football team in the Forks High colors of yellow and purple, and must have been recently deposited because the smell hadn’t fully saturated into the fiber of the fabric. Most importantly, it was long enough to cover all the appropriate parts, and I could ditch the soggy paper gown and put on something that would only cause a minor scandal.

There were only a few classrooms per building, so by the time I made my way back from the lost-and-found Angela was already done. I found her leaning against the wall near the bathrooms, fiddling around with her phone.

“Hey,” I told her. “You find anything?” Angela startled so badly she nearly dropped her phone and snapped her gaze a good three feet above my head. “Chill, it’s fine. I’m dressed.” She lowered her eyes a little cautiously, and narrowed them when she saw my jacket.

“Is that Tyler’s?”

“What?” I frowned, looking at the big white thirteen on my sleeves. “Huh. Small world.”

“He’ll want that back,” she told me. I snorted.

“Well he’s not getting it right now.” I fidgeted as the rough material of the jacket scratched at my skin. I wished there was underwear in the lost-and-found as well. On second thought, I really, really didn’t. “Did you find it?”

“What?” Angela asked absentmindedly. I narrowed my eyes at her.

“My phone,” I said slowly. I watched her shake her head and glance towards the phone in her hand. Suspicion coiled in my stomach like a snake. “You weren’t texting anyone about this, were you? You can’t tell anyone about this. Not anyone.” I spit my words out like hot bullets. I don’t remember making the choice to say them, but I didn’t think I could hold them back if I tried. My voice was that same low, impossible growl that made Angela pale and sent a shiver up my spine. It scratched at my throat a bit and I coughed as soon as I was done.

“No!” Angela squeaked. She quickly showed me the screen of her phone. She was playing Snake.

“Oh,” I said, anger hissing out of me like air from a balloon. That lingering apprehension remained, however, and I felt it itch through my veins. The sight of Angela’s phone reminded me of the absence of mine, and I wanted nothing more than to go and find it. “Do you have any idea where it might be?”

“Well,” Angela said, still looking a bit scared. “You passed out right before lunch, right? And you were in building two, for Mrs. Wallace. Maybe you left it there?”

“Maybe,” I said. I scratched at my arm. “Thanks, Angie.” She nodded quickly, looking a bit relieved. We both turned to face the front door, and I jumped a bit at the tall dark silhouette looming down at us from the glass window.

Well, looming down at me. Angela was too tall for anything to loom down at her. But it was looming nonetheless.

“Shit!” I hissed as the door swung open, and ducked quickly into the nearest bathroom. Angela let out a squawking noise but was too slow to follow me. I pressed my ear to the door, which was probably extremely unhygienic but allowed me to hear the soft clicking of heels against tile as the person neared.

I could practically feel Angela vibrating with nerves as the clicking paused just outside the door. I held my breath as the two waited in silence.

“H-Hey!” Angela finally squeaked out. There was a pause.

“Hello,” came a cool voice. It was silky, soft, undeniably feminine and horrifyingly recognizable. I swore under my breath before clapping my hand under my mouth. It was barely audible but I wasn’t taking any chances, especially considering who might have heard it.

Rosalie Hale was standing barely five feet away from me. And despite Emmett’s massive muscles, Edward’s broody expression, and Jasper’s infamous death glare, she was the scariest Cullen by far.

“Uh,” Angela stammered. “What are you, um, doing here, R-Rosalie?”

“I’m using the bathroom, of course,” she replied in that smooth, more than slightly condescending voice.

“Oh, n-no,” Angela said. I could hear her take a deep breath, and knew she was steeling herself. Angela was timid around people she didn’t know, and Rosalie was possibly the worst person for a self-conscious teenager to have a conversation with. “I-I meant at the school. I didn’t think you were a part of the science fair.”

“No. I’m not.” Shocker, that one. “I was actually looking for someone.” Something about the measured tone of her voice sent a chill up my spine. It seemed to affect Angela as well, if the way her voice rose an octave was anything to go by.

“Really? Wh-who are you looking for? I might have seen them.”

“She’s your friend, I think.” The silky voice dropped dangerously, and my heart beat like a jackhammer in my chest. No, no, god no. “Charlotte Swan, was it? My father was concerned to see she had somehow managed to escape the hospital.” She stressed the word ‘escape,’ as if I was trapped in a prison instead of a health treatment facility.

“That’s funny.” Angela’s voice sounded like someone stepping on a cat.

“Yes. Funny.” There was a long pause, and I felt like I was about to start hyperventilating. Judging by the muffled sounds coming from the other side of the door, Angela was close to it as well. “So?”

“S-So?”

“You said you’d tell me if you’d seen her.” Rosalie sounded impatient. “Have you?”

I knew before Angela spoke what the answer was going to be. I had forced her to potentially sacrifice her good reputation to break me out of a hospital, acted like a deranged animal, and put her in the warpath of an irritated Rosalie Hale. Even if we were the best of friends, I wouldn’t expect her to defend me. I felt tears prick viciously at my eyes, and tried to ignore the fidgety burn in my veins at the thought I might be stopped before I reached my goal.

“No.”

Wait. What?

“Really.”

Oh my god. No. This was too good to be true.

“Y-Yes. Last I saw her, she was in the hospital.”

Oh my god. Oh my god. This was unbelievable. This was the most loyal thing a friend has done for me since Jessica openly bad-mouthed a teacher for not letting me hand in late homework in the sixth grade. She deserved more than bad coffee and a stale pastry. I was going to buy her an entire omelet. A heaping stack of pancakes. I was going to take her into a fancy restaurant and fucking serenade her, this was so ridiculous.

“Yes, I think that is funny.” I froze, pleasant thoughts vanishing at Rosalie’s suddenly icy tone. “I suppose it was rather presumptuous of me to accuse you for such blatant violations.” Oh shit. “Especially considering the implications.”

“Implications?” Angela said in a small voice.

“Oh, of course,” she continued, syllables sliding as easily over her tongue as a serpent’s hiss. That was the visual I got of Rosalie through the door: A great big snake coiled up and ready to swallow me whole. “The police would be informed. Reports would be made. It would all be a lot of trouble.” There was the clicking of heels as Rosalie stepped forward. “Oh, and not to mention being in such a small town. God, would people talk.” Angela was actually hyperventilating now, I could hear her breath puff in and out all the way through the wood. “They’d never stop. It would be the best bit of gossip in years.” Angela’s back hit the door. “It would just go on and on and on.”

There was silence. I held my breath.

My body was pressed so tightly against the door, I could feel the knob twist against my side as it turned to open.

Oh holy fucking shit oh my god

I jumped away from the door at once and looked wildly around the bathroom, searching desperately for a viable escape route. I knew it was useless, the girl’s bathroom windows were bolted shut, always leaving the rooms stuffy and humid enough that condensation beaded on the green tiles. But as I darted frantically around the room, there were blue tiles, fewer stalls than I remembered, the sharp smell of urinal cakes permeating the air—

“Boy’s bathroom!” Angela squeaked.

“What?” Rosalie hissed, the knob paused mid-turn. It occurred to me that Angela must literally be blocking the door with her body, and I felt a sudden sharp pang of gratitude.

“Th-that’s the boy’s bathroom,” she stammered. I didn’t know whether she was stalling on purpose, but I took advantage of it anyway and frantically increased my searching. My eyes landed on the windows. It was school policy to have them sealed shut, as was the case with the girl’s bathrooms. But for this particular one, a group of rowdy teens had pried the frame open so when they smoked pot the distinct smell of marijuana would filter out through the air. The gap was extremely narrow— far too much so for a teenage boy to wiggle out and ditch class.

But for a 4’11” underweight girl?

The windows were too high for me to reach on my own, but they were near the line of urinals. Not directly above them, but close enough that if I were to scramble my way on I could hop to the side and grab the ledge.

“I really don’t see how it matters,” Rosalie’s cold voice said.

I made my way to the urinal closest to the windows and looked at it consideringly. I had never really seen one before, although I really didn’t think now was the time to explore the fascinating new world of boy’s bathrooms. It really was like a little shelf; just a scoop in the wall, slightly yellowed with a little pink patty resting at the base. Perhaps this would be easier than I thought.

“B-But it’s against the rules!” Angela stamered. There was a tenseness to her voice, but it wasn’t the usual edge she got when she was being a stickler about rules. She was stalling on purpose. God bless.

I took a step forward and my bare foot landed in something sticky, peeling up as I took another step. Bare foot. I wasn’t wearing any shoes. I would have to put my feet inside of a urinal without anything to protect them.

Oh god.

“The current state of the girl’s bathroom is displeasing to me,” Rosalie said, the prim nature of her tone underlined by a harsh edge of impatience. “I wish to use the boy’s room.”

I put a hand on top of the urinal to steady myself, and tenderly placed one foot on the lip. My toes curled over the edge and I pushed myself up, balancing myself carefully on the wall. It wasn’t damp. It wasn’t. It was just the cool ceramic against my skin, I was imagining the moist, sticky feeling, I was. The open window was only a couple feet away, but to me it looked like miles. Keeping one hand steady against the wall, I reached, reached, reached out farther…

I wavered slightly, and took one step back. My heel hit the top of the urinal cake, and skidded out from underneath me. Then my legs were above my head, my fingers were just brushing the ledge of the window, and I hit the floor with a deafening crash, nose slamming against the tile.

“FUCK!”

The voices on the other side of the door suddenly grew very silent.

Fuck.

I jumped to my feet, and hopped into the urinal as quickly as I could. The urinal cake had broken to bits on the floor. I could hear Rosalie’s and Angela’s voices on the other side of the door— they were fighting about whether she could go in but the knob hadn’t yet turned. I pivoted to face the window, bent my knees, and leaped.

My fingers grazed the ledge. I grabbed on tight, yanked myself up, and shoved myself through the gap face-first. The door to the bathroom slammed open just as I collapsed in a heap onto the dewy-wet grass outside.

The rain had lightened to a light mist that raised gooseflesh along my bare skin and clung to my curls. Rosalie’s voice filtered out of the open window: high, irritated and shrieky, like the tines of a fork on a ceramic plate.

Building two was just ahead of me. I didn’t look behind me. I ran.

…

Tyler Crowley was in a bad mood. Not that that was an altogether rare occurrence. Dr. Abrams, Forks’s resident child psychologist, had told him he had a relatively mild case of ‘Intermittent Explosive Disorder.’ Mr. Greene, Forks High’s resident principal, had made him a little plaque from construction paper to commemorate his third detention in a week after he punched out some douche for poking fun at Eric Yorkie.

Truthfully, he had been a hell of a lot worse in middle school, before he had found the sweet release of high school football. There, whenever his thoughts got tangled into a ball and his skin felt too small for his body, all he had to do was run faster, push harder, be better. He could pound out his anger with his feet against turf and the slap of a leather ball against his palms and the sweaty press of a team’s worth of high school boys closing in for a touchdown.

Tyler wasn’t stupid, far from it, but whenever he sat down to take exams his thoughts all knotted together like the world’s most convoluted ball of twine. If he didn’t have football, he would probably be shuttled off to the nearest community college as soon as high school had ended. But football had given him a drive, a purpose. He practiced until his body was aching and skin bruised purple, sprinted laps until his breath rattled weakly in his chest, lifted weights until his arms bulged with muscle. He became the star of the team by the time he was a sophomore and the best damn quarterback Forks High had seen in years. At the end of his sophomore year his coach had sat him down and told him very seriously about scholarship opportunities, big fancy Ivy Leagues where he could learn to get his anger issues in check or find a learning style that better suited them.

Junior year had been even better for Tyler. Their team won almost every game, and their losses never reflected back on him. He had pretty girls fluttering their eyelashes up at him, (though he only really cared for Lottie’s sister, Bella) teachers turning blind eyes to his little ‘slips of composure,’ and parties practically thrown in his honor. In their final game, with their skin plastered wet with mud, the team had given Coach Clapp a gatorade shower and the surly man had laughed and clapped him on the back. That night the team had such a raging party Mike Newton had to keep him turned on his side to make sure he didn’t drown in his own vomit, and he woke up with a hangover so painful he thought he was dying.

It wasn’t until the hangover subsided did Tyler realize he had left his lucky jacket at the school. No matter, he supposed, he’d just get it after the weekend passed.

Except that when he did get back, he was so drunk on his own victory he didn’t notice the wheels of his car skidding on ice until he had nearly flattened the object of his affections into the concrete. He had promptly gotten the both of them sent to the emergency room, received the scolding of his life from an enraged Chief Swan, and didn’t have the chance to go to retrieve his jacket until nearly a week later.

So, yeah. Tyler was in a bad mood. He was forced to go get the jacket on Saturday, and the school was in the middle of the annual science fair on top of it. He didn’t like the way all the geeks leered at him— well, maybe that was too harsh. Angela was a geek, and she was civil with him. Bella was a geek, and she was hot as hell. But maybe that was because the two of them didn’t look at him like he was some dumb jock. Like he couldn’t do just as well as them in class if his brain would just shut up for a second.

He was very grimly making his way to building four, the last place he remembered having his jacket, when he heard a shrill screech and a sound of crashing. He lifted his head from where he was glaring at his shoes just in time to catch Charlotte Swan booking it across the stretch of grass from buildings two and four, bare ass naked except for his very own letterman jacket.

Huh.

…

The distance between the window I had fallen out of and building two couldn’t have been more than half a dozen meters in length but it felt like I had run a marathon by the time I was slamming through the doors. I dearly hoped no leery-eyed Forks mothers had caught my wild sprint. Luckily, the humidity in the air and sweat on my skin had kept the jacket pretty firmly pasted against my skin, so no unmentionables were exposed to the watchful eyes of Forks.

Small mercies, really. If I had been seen the story would be indubitably so twisted by the time it came round to me again that I would have been informed I had been prancing buck-naked around the school, flashing the poor science fair kids out of some conniving, lascivious machinations.

My panting breath leveled slightly as I slumped against the wall, and my heartbeat began to feel less like a jackhammer and more like a hummingbird. Laying in bed for a week had done no wonders for my general constitution. Still, somehow I felt better than ever. The strange prickling on my skin had receded, my molars had stopped aching, and the strange fiery feeling in my stomach and veins had lessened to a dull pulse. There was a certain heaviness to the empty halls of building two. It pressed along my skin like a blanket made of stale air and unfulfilled dreams.

The vision of my Nokia came unbidden, but this time less as a warning and more of a promise. It hovered in my mind’s eye, almost corporeal in its vividity, and pulled at my brain like a dog on a leash. I followed, moving slowly along the white-tiled halls as the buzz of the air conditioning faded away.

What followed was a particularly strange experience— although, so many of the experiences I’d been having lately were strange so it was almost familiar. The sensation in my body faded just like the air conditioning, until I could no longer feel my legs moved underneath me. My eyes stayed glued straight ahead. It seemed as if I was staying still and the hall was drifting around me. Classroom doors slid slowly by, barely registering. All dark wood, all small shuttered windows on the front, all silver numbers posted neatly at the side. Mrs. Wallace’s classroom danced forebodingly to my right, but I could not turn to look.

My vision pivoted to the left, and suddenly I was staring at another door. Same dark wood, but no little number to the side and no little window to peer into. A white sign was duct-taped neatly to the front. “Out of Order.” A bit of sensation flooded back and I felt my hand on the knob. I jiggled it.

Locked.

A little bit more, and I could feel my legs step back and my hands tense at my sides. I turned so my shoulder was facing the door. I tensed, legs bunching underneath me. And then I slammed into the door.

Shit!

The haze in my mind began to clear a bit from the pain, but I still couldn’t move my body. Or rather, control my body, as it was moving quite fine on its own. I gulped apprehensively as I felt myself shift backwards, shoulder once more tilting to face the wall, legs bunching underneath me.

A hand landed on my sore shoulder and I yelped a bit from the pain, turning to face my assailant. Tyler Crowley stared back down at me, eyebrows scrunched in concern. He mouthed something. It occurred to me later he was actually speaking to me but I just couldn’t hear him.

I stared at Tyler. The haze in my brain recognized the bulk of his body, the swell of his shoulders. He was even taller than Angela, and had a frame to match. He began mouthing more furiously, and poked at my jacket. I poked at the door, then his biceps. They felt like rocks.

We had both established our intentions as clearly as we could.

Tyler looked at me. He looked at the door. He looked at the ceiling, opened his jaw in what could only be a sigh, and then guided me away from the door. I waited patiently as he took a couple steps from the door, tilted his shoulder to face it just like I had, and then sprung.

The door practically exploded off the wall, hinges rattling with such a noise it even permeated the haze of my mind. Tyler stumbled back from the now-exposed bathroom, rubbing his shoulder and mumbling to himself. He turned and looked at me expectantly.

The haze was happy with the removal of its obstacle. It flooded my brain once again. The leash was back, pulling somewhere at the back of my mind, and I was guided through the doorway.

The first thing I saw was the mirror. It hung just above the sinks, reflecting shards of light from the hallway back at me. The light came in fractions, rippling off the cracked surface of the glass. Because it was cracked— In fact, calling it a mirror was a generosity considering over half of it was littered across the floor in a fine powder.

“Jesus, Lottie,” I heard a voice say in the back of my mind as I stepped forward. I was sure I was cutting the bottom of my bare feet bloody, but I couldn’t feel a thing. “You did all that with your fucking head?”

The far wall from the mirrors and the door had a large indent in the drywall. I stepped closer, and stared at it. A phantom memory danced through my mind: the feeling of flying through the air, skidding across a bathroom wall, slamming into the plaster with force that rattled my teeth in my jaws. Drops of blood beaded on the floor at its base. Not fresh. Dry, and brown from the oxidisation. I leaned down to peer more closely.

The leash at my mind pulled insistently. Still craning over, my head tilted to the side. I could see under the bathroom stalls from here. I could see the far stall, and the dark familiar shape of something resting at the base of the toilet.

Like cotton candy in boiled water, the haze vanished from my mind. But not just the haze, every strange sensation I had been experiencing over the past week. The strange fire in my body, the itching at my nerves, everything. I felt just like I always had. Except, I mused, scrambling forward to retrieve my long-sought Nokia, significantly more bruised and battered.

“There you are Lottie!” Came a voice, familiar in cadence and squeaky with rage and anxiety. I turned, phone grasped safely in hand. Angela was staring in the doorway, face blanched white except for two hard spots of color on the apples of her cheeks.

“Angela?” Tyler asked in mild surprise.

“Tyler?!” Angela shrieked back.

“Woah,” I said, rubbing at my temples. “That was really fucking weird. Like, really fucking weird.”

“Oh, are you back then?” Tyler said snidely. “I’ve been talking at you for three minutes.” I frowned at him.

“You have?”

“Yeah, you were just wandering around. Like a zombie.”

“Oh no,” Angela moaned. “She was in her rabid dog state?”

“Her rabid dog what?”

I was too busy fiddling with my phone to pay much attention to their conversation. I knew I really should be, considering the grievances I had put at least Angela through, but I wanted to know why the haze had thought it so important I found my phone. It had survived the bathroom incident relatively unscathed, with only a small chip in the casing to show for it. It still had power, miraculously enough. When I opened it up it looked like I had just finished filming a video.

Curiosity peaked, I accessed it and pressed play, holding it up close so I could hear the sound filtering out of the tinny speakers.

“Lottie, what the fuck are you doing now?”

The video finished. All the blood had drained from my face. I wasn’t sure where it had gone, as my heart was pumping desperately in my chest and my fingers felt very, very cold.

“Lottie?” That was Tyler. He crouched down next to me, so close I could smell his musk of fresh sweat and old deodorant. “Hey, are you alright?”

“Hey,” I said. My voice sounded weak and reedy and very far away. “You know what they said about what happened? About why I passed out and who found me and everything?” Tyler gave me a strange look.

“Uh, yeah. You fucking passed out and broke your head against the mirror. The whole school was talking about it.” Angela shoved her elbow into his side and he winced, not so much from the pain as from contrition. “Shit. Sorry, I mean, that didn’t really happen, I mean—”

“Watch this.” I showed them the screen of my phone and they huddled around me, pressing warm and comforting against my sides.

The video started innocuously enough, with me shoving my camera up into Alice’s face.

“What the fuck, Lottie?” Tyler asked, bewildered. Angela’s response was more analytical.

“Where’s her mouth?” she asked, frowning down at the scream. I closed my eyes and shook my head, memories beginning to itch at my brain.

“I dunno.” We kept watching. Very suddenly, the camera was no longer pointed at the Cullen girl’s face. There were a couple shots of the ceiling, floor, and walls as it tumbled through the air before skidding beneath the bathroom stall where I found it.

“Did— Did Alice do that?” Angela whispered.

The sound of breaking glass came from the speakers. I had the sudden image of an enraged Alice bashing my head against the mirror and by the anxious noises coming from my left and right it seemed my friends had the same idea. Then the sound of a door slamming open, and Emmett Cullen’s unmistakably ursine growl.

“Did she bite you?”

My cell phone only had so many frames it could film at a time. The video ended right there, with the two Cullen siblings presumably hovering over my unconscious body as my phone filmed quietly from the stall.

For a few moments, there was quiet.

“Oh my god, Lottie,” Angela finally said in a very small voice. “Do you know what this means?” She didn’t wait for us to respond. I don’t think any of us would have, anyway. “You didn’t pass out. You were attacked.”

“Shit,” I said.

“Shit,” they agreed.

Tyler let out a muffled sound of distress. Emmett was probably the only kid in the whole school he couldn’t punch out his feelings on, and he had reservations about hitting girls. I shifted unconsciously, and hissed as I felt the bottom of my feet burn. When the three of us glanced down we saw the soles of my feet were slick with blood.

“Jesus, Lottie!” Tyler said emphatically. “That looks bad! We need to get you to the hospital. You could need stitches, or—” He was cut off by Angela’s squeak of distress.

“The hospital!” She moaned. “Oh, I forgot about that. We’re going to be in so much trouble…” Tyler stared at her.

“Trouble?” he asked. “For what?”

“For breaking her out of the hospital!” Angela said, burying her face in her hands. “Oh, this is bad. We could get arrested, or—”

“No you can’t,” Tyler said, like that was the stupidest thing he had ever heard. She peered at him hopefully through her fingers.

“What do you mean?” He shifted awkwardly, obviously quite unused to being the only person to know something.

“The hospital can’t, ah, can’t keep you without your permission. It’s called AMA discharge. One time I broke my thumb and they tried to keep me in the emergency room but I had a game.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It got a lot worse than if I had stayed, but we won, so it was worth it, I guess.”

“Thank god,” Angela sighed, shoulders slumping. Her face grew angry. “So Rosalie lied to me!”

“Not entirely,” a smooth voice came from the doorway. I felt my blood turn to ice and Angela let out a little squeak. “While not necessarily illegal, it is unadvised. And very, very rude.”

We all turned as one to face the doorway. There Carlisle stood, an unreadable expression on his face and stethoscope curled around his neck like a silver snake. Rosalie stood to his left side, amber eyes black with thinly-concealed rage and something darker. Edward stood to his right, gaze fixed on the red soles of my feet. I felt Tyler’s muscles tense in subconscious preparation of a fight.

Shit.

…

Marcus opened his eyes to look at his late lover’s grave. Closing them in the first place was merely a formality. It was impossible for him to sleep, or even for his thoughts to drift. Vampiric focus kept a well-organized mind, and even daydreaming became something more like scheming, layered with machinations that kept him constantly on track. But sometimes the senses his body granted him became overpowering, and he needed to find a way to shut them down. He didn’t need to be able to see an ant on a wall across a room. He didn’t need to be able to see each individual leg and antennae and hints of the hairs that bristled its body. It was an overload that clawed at his mind, played at his nerves like piano wire.

Aro had built Didyme’s room with Marcus’s sensory overload in mind. Everything in it was constructed of the finest spider pink marble. The walls, floors, arched ceiling and even the sepulchre that housed Didyme’s ashes were all a pure, blinding white broken only by threads of the most vivid rose gold. It was as beautiful as it was cold and uncomfortable. The beauty was to honor Didyme. The discomfort was Marcus’s punishment.

Although Aro had compromised on the material, everything else about the room was constructed with his brother’s comfort in mind. The room was cleaned extensively to be as scentless as possible, and the walls were carved as to funnel sound in a way that turned it more to white noise than anything. When Marcus closed his eyes and kneeled at the base of Didyme’s grave he could almost pretend he was human again. Well, no. That was a foreign sensation. The last strands of his humanity had been swept away centuries before. But he could pretend he was floating in some vast void of his grief, tethered to the mortal (or rather immortal) plane only by the press of cold marble against his knees.

Marcus had long stopped trying to kill himself. He knew that was in part due to Aro’s schemings with his covenmates Chelsea and Corin. It was never meant to be a secret. He saw the world, saw the connections between people in colored strings that floated lazily through his mind. He could see when Chelsea played with those strings, knotting his soul tightly to the Volturi. He could see when Corin layered her emotional manipulation on to him, settling her powers over him in a warm blanket of contentment. It had worked at first, kept him from seeking out ways to end his immortal reign. But Didyme had dealt with matters of the heart as well, and the happiness her powers inspired in him were far more pure and overwhelming then the mere tranquility Corin could muster.

Marcus wondered if Aro knew that enough exposure to Corin and Chelsea’s powers rendered them useless. He knew Aro could see how the power had faded when he held his wife, pressed his skin against hers in bed. If Athenodora and Sulpicia wanted, they could leave that very moment and nothing Corin or their husbands could do could stop them. Even Chelsea’s ties of loyalty could be dismantled with enough effort. Perhaps it was just fear, fear of losing the truest allies the three kings had.

The only connection purer between that of a Volturi king and his wife was a Volturi king and his brother. Marcus knew that fact intimately. Corin’s layer of contentment had faded, thinned like a moth-eaten blanket. He had managed to unhook Chelsea’s ties between him and the Volturi after a couple of centuries worth of effort. But he still did not want to kill himself.

Oh, he did not want to live either. Living was even harder than dying was. But his loyalty to his brothers kept him from trying. He would continue like he had since his wife’s death, not quite living, not quite dying. Floating in that same vast void of grief.

As a subconscious reaction to thinking about the strings, Marcus let his powers come forth. It was like opening his eyes in a different way, pulling off a veil and letting a sea of strings flutter forth. Hundreds issued forth from his own chest, but most were so inconsequentially thin they weren’t worth noticing. Like a webbing of rainbow light.

Some were thicker, of course. Jane, Alec, and Felix were the most apparent of the Guard, each about a pinky finger’s width. Jane was a bright red, freshly-spilt blood. Alec slightly darker, as if reminiscent of the black vapor of his powers. Felix was a purplish sort of maroon. Sulpicia and Athenodora were next, about as wide as his thumb and pink. The former a vivid fuschia, the latter a pale rose.

Caius and Aro were the largest of all and the closest to his heart. As thick as his wrist and the blinding silver color only a soul-brother could attain. The length of Caius’s string was interrupted with complex loops. Celtic shield knots, a representation of protection and commonly placed on battlefields. A symbol of their relationships, brothers in war. Aro’s string was composed of a multitude of fibers, each so thin that when put together the whole thing looked smooth and strong as steel. The only disturbances were the fine strands of black that intercepted the blinding silver. They had started appearing after Didyme’s death, but hadn’t become noticeable until their number increased. There was still far more silver than black, but their presence at all was worrying. A representation of the slow poisoning of a bond.

Marcus knew Aro knew about their bond. Marcus knew Aro knew that Marcus knew. It was just another thing the pair would quietly recognize but never discuss, like Didyme’s death or the ineffectiveness of Chelsea and Corin’s powers.

Didyme’s passing had destroyed the bond that linked them together, but it left a gap behind that had never been filled. Her bond had been the most gorgeous of all. Just as smooth and unbreaking as her brother’s, but with the consistency of silk instead of steel and a rose-gold color that was unmatched in beauty. It was centered directly over his heart, and as wide around as his arm. Now there was only emptiness. Aro and Caius’s strings got the closest, but the gap in the webbing remained. A visual representation of his barren heart.

Which was fine. He deserved it. He deserved to live with the grief and the emptiness, because he didn’t deserve to live in a world where his beloved Didyme had already passed. But although there were many cruelties Marcus would gladly stack upon his shoulders, there were some punishments too harsh even for him.

He didn’t deserve the bond he saw when he opened his sight, positioned squarely over his frozen heart. Just a single string, no thicker than spider silk. If he didn’t have his vampiric powers of observation he wouldn’t have even noticed it in the first place. But there it was.

He lifted his hand. Twisted it around the string. Brought it close to his eye and as the light reflected off of it he saw its color. A singular, blinding gold.

Gold. Marcus knew what gold meant. He knew when he looked at the so-close-so-far color that was Didyme’s bond. He knew when he saw the strings between Chelsea and Afton, between Carisle and his pretty mate Esme. He had always felt quietly vengeful when he saw it, and desired more than anything for it to be reflected back at him in the bond with his wife.

Looking at it now, he had never seen a color so ugly. For the first time since Didyme’s passing, Marcus felt something other than apathy.

And that was pure, blinding rage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait guys! I've had a ton of work on my plate, but here's an extra large chapter to satisfy!

**Author's Note:**

> I have a couple chapters of this story up on fanfiction.net and figured I'd try posting it here as well. Hope y'all enjoy! Feel free to leave a comment and a kudos as well, I always reply. :)


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